DANIEL HENDERSON 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



00010332^77 




Class _ 

Book 
Copyright N° 



COrVRIGHT DEPCStT. 



JUNGLE ROADS 

And Other Trails of 
ROOSEVELT 



-In after years there shall come forever to his mind the memory of 
endless prairies shimmering in the bright sun; of vast, snow-clad wastes 
lying desolate under gray skies; of the melancholy marshes; of the rush 
of mighty rivers; of the breath of the evergreen forest in summer; of the 
crooning of ice-armored pines at the touch of the winds of winter; of 
cataracts roaring between hoary mountain passes; of all the innumerable 
sights and sounds of the wilderness and of the silences that brood in « 
still depths "-Theodore Roosevelt in «« The Wilderness Hunter. 




OUR SPORTSMAN-PRESIDENT 



JUNGLE ROADS 

And Other Trails of Roosevelt 

A Book for Boys 



BY 

DANIEL HENDERSON 

author of 

"Greatheart: The Life Story of Theodore Roosevelt," 

"Life's Minstrel: A Book of Verse" 




NEW YORK 

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 

68 1 Fifth Avenue 



Copyright, 1920 
By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 



All Rights Reserved 



Ms 



©CU60170I 

Printed in the United States of America 



o 






DEDICATED TO 
THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA 



INVITATION 

HERE are camp-fires, and hunting lodges and sol- 
diers' tents and ranch-houses, and portages 
through the wilderness, and a Presidential chair. 

Here are lions and elephants and grizzlies and buf- 
faloes. 

Here are Boy Scouts and prairie children and Oyster 
Bay youngsters and slum tots and college students and 
a big-hearted man who loved them all. 

Here are trappers and hunters and outlaws and 
"cops" and boxers and wrestlers and statesmen and 
rulers. 

Here are pet kittens and dogs and ponies and even 
a pet badger. 

Here is love of adventure; woodcraft and fieldcraft; 
bird and animal lore; a hatred of meanness and cow- 
ardice; a love of home and yet a fondness for new 
and dangerous trails. 

Here is a father who not only read to his boys of 
the pirates of the Spanish Main, but also followed the 
reading by taking them down to a raft in Oyster 
Bay to play at pirates with them. 

Here is a Dad who not only talked to them of wild 
beasts, but also led them off on hunting and camping 
trips. 

Here is a man who told his sons: 

"Don't flinch; don't foul; hit the line hard!" and 



viii Invitation 

who led a life in which they could see that he prac- 
ticed what he preached. 

Here are the camp-fires of Theodore Roosevelt, and 
by their light you may see his career. Here are 
roads that lure boys and girls out into the clean 
healthful life of the out-of-doors, under the kindliest 
and most helpful of guides. May we reach the end of 
these trails with a clearer vision, and a nobler aim! 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

In the preparation of this volume the author has re- 
ferred to the following books by Theodore Roosevelt: 

"Theodore Roosevelt, an Autobiography", 
"Hunting Trips of a Ranchman", 
"Ranch Life and Hunting Trail", 
"The Rough Riders", 

"Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter", 
"African Game Trails", 
"Through the Brazilian Wilderness", 
"The Winning of the West", 
"Fear God and Take Your Own Part," 
"Roosevelt's Letters to His Children," edited by Joseph 
Bucklin Bishop. 

The writer has also consulted the following volumes 
about Roosevelt, and acknowledges his debt to their 
authors : 

"Theodore Roosevelt: The Man as I Knew Him", by 

Ferdinand Cowle Iglehart, D. D., 
"The Life of Theodore Roosevelt", by Wm. Draper Lewis, 
"Theodore Roosevelt; an Intimate Biography", by Wm. 

Roscoe Thayer, 
"The Man Roosevelt", by Francis E. Leupp, 
"The Boys' Life of Theodore Roosevelt", by Herman 

Hagedorn, Jr., 
"Theodore Roosevelt, the Boy and Man", by James 

Morgan, 
"Theodore Roosevelt ; the Logic of His Career", by Charles 

G. Washburn, 
"Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen", by Jacob A. Riis, 



x Acknowledgments 

"Theodore Roosevelt", by Frederick E. Drinker and Jay 

Henry Mowbray, 
"The Marvelous Career of Theodore Roosevelt", by 

Charles Morris, 
"The Rough Rider to President", by Max Kullnick, 
"Conversations with Roosevelt", by John J. Leary, Jr., 
"Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt", by Lawrence F. 

Abbott. 

Acknowledgment is also made to McClure's Maga- 
zine, The Outlook, Metropolitan Magazine, World's 
Work, Scribner's Magazine and other periodicals, and 
to those magazine and newspaper writers whose reports 
and articles have helped to complete the picture of 
Theodore Roosevelt found in this volume. 



CONTENTS 



PATHS OF BOYHOOD 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Folk who Went Before i 

First Steamboat on the Mississippi 2 

The Great Ancestor 4 

II. A Boy of the North and South 6 

The Blockade Runners 8 

Theodore's First Victory 14 

III. Theodore Discovers Europe 17 

The Second Voyage 20 

IV. Vacation Adventures 25 

V. The First Wilderness Trail 30 

A KNIGHT ERRANT OF POLITICS 

VI. At Harvard 35 

VII. The First Political Path 43 

The New York Legislature 46 

A Slugger Slugged 48 

THE TRAIL LEADS WEST-AND EAST AGAIN 

VIII. A Tenderfoot in the Bad Lands 50 

Bill Sewall Joins Roosevelt 55 

Life on Elkhorn Ranch 56 

si 



3di CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

IX. Along the Cattle Trail 60 

X. Our Hero Floors a Gunman and Prepares to 

Fight a Duel 68 

Roosevelt Meets Seth Bullock 71 

Finnigan the Outlaw 74 

Adventures with Indians 76 

Boys and Girls of the Prairie 77 

XI. Hunting Adventures 79 

A Mississippi Bear Hunt 79 

Adventures with Grizzlies 83 

A Tough "Tenderfoot" 85 

A Cougar Hunt 88 

Abernethy and the Wolf 90 

In Yellowstone Park 90 

XII. The Rancher Returns to the East 93 

XIII. The Men with the " Night-Sticks" 99 

A WAR ROAD 

XIV. Preparing our Navy for War 105 

XV. Giving Dewey and Sims Their Chance 112 

XVI. "David and Jonathan" Become Leaders of the 

"Rough Riders" 115 

XVII. Through Cuban Jungles 120 

The San Juan Battle 122 

THE WAY TO THE WHITE HOUSE 

XVIII. From San Juan to the Presidency 130 

The Rough Rider Becomes Governor of New 
York 130 



CONTENTS xiii 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XVIII. From San Juan to the Presidency — Continued. 

In the Footsteps of McKinley 134 

The Great Coal Strike 137 

XIX. Important Events of Roosevelt's Presidency.. 139 

The Man Who Built the Panama Canal 139 

Curbing the Kaiser 142 

Making Peace between Japan and Russia 145 

Our Fleet Circles the Globe 148 

XX. Our Sportsman-President 151 

XXI. The Chum of Boys 158 

At Sagamore Hill 161 

The Colonel's Pets 164 

THROUGH THE AFRICAN WILDERNESS 

XXII. "Bwana Tumbo" — The Great Hunter 165 

Livingstone and Stanley 168 

XXIII. Tracking Big Game 172 

Slaying the Lion 173 

The African Buffalo 175 

An Elephant Charge 176 

Hunting the Hippopotamus 177 

XXIV. The Return from the Jungle 181 

On Cleopatra's River 182 

XXV. "Hang These Kings!" 185 

MORE TRAILS OF ADVENTURE 

XXVI. "The Bull Moose" 195 

Back to the West 198 

Big Game of the Sea 201 



xiv CONTENTS 

AMERICA'S AWAKENER 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XXVII. The River of Doubt Becomes the River 

Theodore 202 

XXVIII. "America Arouse!" 208 

XXIX. "QUENTIN, THE EAGLE" 213 

!"The Colonel" Passes 220 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Our Sportsman-President .... Frontispiece *"' 

FACING 
PAGE 

The Roosevelt Home at 28 E. Twentieth St. . . 43 
Colonel Roosevelt Leading the " Rough Riders " . 105 
Roosevelt among the Canal Diggers .... 139 
The President aboard the " Mayflower " . . .158 

A Typical African Hunting Scene 165 

Rough-Riding through Egypt . . . . .181 



xv 



JUNGLE ROADS 

And Other Trails of 

ROOSEVELT 



PATHS OF BOYHOOD 
I. The Folk Who Went Before 

"Where nowadays the Battery lies, 

New York had just begun, 
A newborn babe, to rub its eyes 

In sixteen sixty-one. 
They christen'd it Nieuw Amsterdam, 

These burghers grave and stately, 
And so with schnapps and smoke and psalm 
Lived out their lives sedately." 

— Edmund Clarence Stedman. 

ONCE upon a time, there was a little boy with a 
big name — Cornelius Van Schaack Roosevelt. 
He lived in New York City and went on Sunday with 
his parents to a little Dutch Reformed Church. On a 
hot Sabbath, the minister's sermon seemed to be un- 
usually long and dry to the restless youngster. Outside, 
birds were singing; bees were humming; daisies and 
buttercups were beckoning ; and grunting pigs were 
wandering about the street. Cornelius saw all this 
through a window, and before the service was ended, 
slipped away from his father's grasp and ran down the 
aisle into the street. His elders looked shocked and 
whispered that he would doubtless get a spanking when 
his father found him. 

But the worst was to come. As the congregation 
left the church, clad in their best garments and 



2 Jungle Roads 

walking with the primness and dignity of the church- 
goers of early days, the huge boar that had led the 
drove of pigs dashed among them, and astride its 
back was— Cornelius ! 

People predicted that Cornelius would come to a 
bad end, but instead he grew up to be a distinguished 
citizen of New York, and Theodore Roosevelt, a boy 
born many years later, was proud to call him grand- 
father. 

FIRST STEAMBOAT ON THE MISSISSIPPI 

Another ancestor who Theodore Roosevelt liked to 
hear about was Nicholas J. Roosevelt. He was born 
in New York in 1768, and became a friend of Robert 
Fulton, the inventor of the first steamboat. He helped 
to introduce the steamboat that proved to be successfu 
on the Hudson, upon western rivers. He built at 
Pittsburgh, the first steamboat that appeared on the 
waters of the Mississippi valley. 

The wife of Nicholas J. Roosevelt has thus described 
the first trip made by her husband and herself down 
the Mississippi, for the purpose of determining whether 
the proposed steamboat could be navigated: 

"The journey in the flat boat commenced at Pitts- 
burgh where Mr. Roosevelt had it built; a huge box 
containing a comfortable bedroom, dining room pantry 
and a room in front for the crew, with a fireplace 
where the cooking was done. The top of the boat was 
flat with seats and an awning. We had on board a 
pilot, three hands, and a man cook. We always 
stopped at night, lashing the boat to the shore The 
row boat was a large one, in which Mr. Roosevelt went 
out continually with two or three men to ascertain the 
rapidity of the ripple or current." 



Paths of Boyhood 3 

The people Nicholas Roosevelt met along the river 
were highly amused when he told them his dream of 
navigating the river by steamboat, and when, with the 
aid of Eastern capitalists, he built his boat and started 
on the journey, the dwellers by the river said: "We 
see you for the last time. Your boat may go down the 
river; but, as to coming up it, the very idea is an 
absurd one." 

There appeared an account of the voyage in the 
Pittsburgh "Navigator," which was printed in 1814. 
Among other interesting things it said: 

"She passes floating wood on the river as you pass 
objects on land when on a swift trotting horse." 

In 1907, when our Theodore had become President, 
he boarded at Keokuk, Iowa, a stern- wheel steamer of 
the regular Mississippi type and took a trip down this 
famous river, covering doubtless part of the same 
course taken by his brave ancestor. The wharves of the 
towns the President passed were packed with men, 
women and children, cheering and waving flags. Writ- 
ing of the river's history to his son Kermit, the Colonel 
described the changes that had taken place in the Mis- 
sissippi. First the buffalo and the elk haunted its 
densely forested banks; and Indian hunters roved 
along its banks or paddled up and down its waters in 
their canoes. Then a French fleet dared its Uncharted 
channels, and French-Canadian explorers darted down 
it in their canoes. Later came the fur trader to build 
his shack on its shore; then American pioneers be- 
gan to people it; then the day of the steamboat came. 
The spirit of Nicholas Roosevelt must have brooded 
over the Colonel as he was piloted down the twisting 
channel. 



Jungle Roads 



THE GREAT ANCESTOR 

Farther back, however, than either of these two 
heroes, was The Great Ancestor. 

Long, long ago, in 1644, before the Boston tea party, 
or Paul Revere, or "Old Put," or Betsy Ross were 
dreamed of by the American colonists, there lived in 
Holland Klaes Martensen van Roosevelt. 

Klaes had friends who had sailed to America in 
sailing-ships so frail that it was a wonder to timid 
home-staying folk that they ever came back to port 
again. However, Klaes had seen some of them return 
with cargoes of furs and skins gathered from the 
forests that were then at the very back-door of the 
village of New Amsterdam — the new world settlement 
that had been founded by Dutch merchants on the 
island of Manhattan, and that had been bought from 
the Indians by Governor Peter Minuit for sixty guild- 
ers (24 dollars). 

Klaes was told by these friends that more money 
could be made in ten years spent in New Amsterdam, 
for all its wildness and lack of comforts, than could 
be made in Holland in a lifetime. His love for adven- 
ture led Klaes to cut loose from his old-world ties, 
and to sail to this wonderful world where the In- 
dians, he heard, gave to the white people, in ex- 
change for glass beads and other trifles, the most 
precious furs the wilderness possessed. 

Although Klaes found in America the familiar 
wooden shoes, baggy breeches and windmills that earlier 
emigrants from Holland had brought with them, he 
found New Amsterdam even wilder than he had 
dreamed. Men of every country were gathered there. 
A score of languages could be heard in the streets. 



Paths of Boyhood 5 

Indians and Africans mixed with men of Dutch, Eng- 
lish, Irish, German, and French descent, and with ne- 
groes who had been imported as slaves from the Gold 
Coast of Africa. 

Dutch ladies, undaunted by the wilderness, came 
over with their husbands. They brought with them 
rosy-cheeked housemaids, who were promptly courted 
by Jan or Dirck or Peter, or some other young settler, 
and who soon married and set up homes of their own. 

Mingling with sober honest men of the type of Klaes 
were criminals from every country of the old world. 
It took all of the wisdom and courage of the Holland- 
ers who composed the ruling class, to keep order and 
to advance civilization in the settlement. 

Well was it for the new world that Klaes Marten- 
sen van Roosevelt became a "settler" in it. From him 
was to spring a line of descendants who were sturdy, 
thrifty, useful, God-fearing citizens, and who, besides 
being good business men, ably filled offices as judges, 
aldermen, state senators, and Congressmen. 

From the time Klaes came over in the steerage of a 
sailing ship in the seventeenth century, every one of his 
descendants twas born in Manhattan Island. 



Jungle Roads 



II. A Boy of the North and South 

A WAR period is an unpleasant time in which to be 
born. How can a baby get its sleep when the 
bugles are blowing outside his or her window, or how 
can a mother protect it when the guns are thundering, 
or perhaps throwing shells upon one's roof? 

Theodore Roosevelt was not born in actual war 
times, but the period was the next thing to it. The 
seeds of Civil strife had already been sown. The 
North and South had been gradually dividing over the 
Slavery question, and while it might have been settled 
by peaceable means, it at last reached a stage where 
war was certain. 

On the election of Abraham Lincoln, the South de- 
cided to stand by its principle of slavery and self-gov- 
ernment to the extent of withdrawing from the Union. 
The North determined that slavery should not exist and 
that the nation should not be divided. The South, at 
Fort Sumter, fired the first gun, and the terrible four 
years' conflict was begun. 

The nation was torn asunder by the strife, and the 
shadow of war even crept across the Roosevelt thresh- 
old, for while Theodore's father was a Northerner and 
a strong supporter of the Union cause, the mother of 
the boy had been born in Georgia. Naturally her 
heart turned in sympathy to her relatives whose for- 
tunes were wrapped up in the Confederate banner. 

Mrs. Roosevelt, to use Colonel Roosevelt's own 
words, "was a sweet, gracious, beautiful Southern 



Paths of Boyhood 7 

woman, a delightful companion and loved by every- 
body." Her ancestors in the past had rendered notable 
service to the Union. One of her grandfathers had 
been a Major in the Mexican War, and her great- 
grandfather, Archibald Bulloch, was the first Governor 
of Georgia. The homes of her kinsmen and friends 
were situated on the route of Sherman's march to the 
sea, and there were good reasons for her anxiety 
concerning them. 

One can imagine Theodore, perched upon his father's 
shoulder, watching the New York regiments marching 
away to battle. All the boy saw was the beautiful 
flags and prancing horses and bright bayonets; all he 
heard was the stirring music. Yet there was to come 
a time when he would realize what a grim and dread- 
ful business war was, only to be resorted to when 
all other means of preserving right and liberty fail. 

Theodore's father took good care that his wife 
should be shielded and comforted in these days. It 
happened that Ted at this time resented a punishment 
his mother had given him. In revenge he shouted a 
prayer for the success of the Union cause. His mother 
loved fun, and this prank of her son made her laugh 
to herself. Yet, to subdue the boy, she told him that 
she would ask his father to punish him if he repeated 
it. Theodore knew how his father stood on such mat- 
ters and he never again tried to vex his mother in 
this way. 

He feared his father, yet it was a fear inspired not 
by punishment but by love and respect. His father 
was of the tenderest nature. His children remembered 
having seen him bring home in the pocket of his great- 
coat a lost kitten which he had found in the street. 



8 Jungle Roads 

Fortunate is the man who, when he dies, can have his 
son say of him what Theodore said of his father: 

"He was the best man I ever knew. He combined 
strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness and 
great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us chil- 
dren selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or un- 
truthfulness. As we grew older he made us under- 
stand that the same standard of clean living was de- 
manded for the boys as for the girls; that what was 
wrong in a woman could not be right in a man." 

The war work of Mr. Roosevelt kept him away from 
home a great part of the time. His wife, on the 
other hand, with a great pretense at secresy, u^ed to 
send boxes packed with food and comforts to rela- 
tives in the Confederate army. Theodore, loyal as he 
was to his father's cause, showed his impartiality by 
helping, as far as a child could, to pack these secret 
cases. 

THE BLOCKADE RUNNERS 

At last General Lee surrendered, and the bitter war 
was over. Then who should come to the house on East 
Twentieth Street, but his mother's eldest brother, 
James Dunwoody Bulloch, who had been a Captain in 
the Confederate Navy. He at once obtained a place 
in the affections of the Roosevelt children, who called 
him Uncle Jimmy. Uncle Jimmy had been in the Navy 
of the United States; but when war broke out he was 
in the Merchant Marine. His ship, the Bienville, was 
then in Southern waters, but Uncle Jimmy's sense of 
honor required him to deliver the vessel to her North- 
ern owners. This done, he offered his services to the 



Paths of Boyhood 9 

Confederacy, was commissioned a captain and sent to 
England to buy arms. He ran the blockade success- 
fully, and then went back to England to build and 
equip vessels for the Southern government. 

It is perhaps worth while to look into the career of 
Uncle Jimmy, to see just what damage he did to the 
Navy his nephew was to help put into righting condition 
for the conflict with Spain. 

The Confederate Government, having been unable to 
build warships in Southern ports, decided to procure 
them in Europe. The British held that it was lawful 
to build ships in their harbors, if they were not equip- 
ped with guns, ammunition, and a full crew. It was 
part of Uncle Jimmy's duty to see that the ships were 
built, and then to arrange that another ship bearing 
the necessary men and guns should meet it outside of 
British territory. When the ships met, the new ves- 
sel was fitted out, and became at once a Confederate 
man-of-war. 

The first ship built in this way in England was the 
Florida. She sailed from England without guns, and 
received part of her battery in the Bahamas, but needed 
more equipment, as well as a crew to replace her sick 
men. Her captain decided to try to obtain these at 
Mobile. On the way to Mobile, the Florida sighted 
the blockading squadron of the Federal Government; 
but, under the guise of an English vessel, she suc- 
ceeded in running the blockade. After a four months' 
stay in Mobile, the Florida, taking advantage of a dark 
night, slipped out of the harbor, past the blockading 
fleet of seven ships, and in the next ten days captured 
and burned three merchant vessels. She reached Bar- 
bados, took on coal, and started out on a cruise in 



io Jungle Roads 

which she captured and destroyed fourteen prizes. She 
then crossed the ocean and put in the harbor of Bahia, 
where lay the United States sloop-of-war Wachusett. 
Captain Collins of the Wachusett attacked, and forced 
her to surrender. 

The second cruiser built in England for the Confed- 
erates by Uncle Jimmy, was the famous Alabama. The 
United States knew that this vessel was being built 
and protested to Great Britain that the ship was in- 
tended to make war on the Union, and urged that she 
be seized, but while the authorities at Liverpool were 
considering the matter, the Alabama, without guns, 
left Liverpool, supposedly on a trial trip. 

She never returned, but sailed instead to the Azores, 
where the bark Agrippina of London brought her guns, 
ammunition, stores and coal. With a crew composed 
mostly of Liverpool men, her commander Semmes 
started on a cruise in the North Atlantic and in two 
months captured and destroyed twenty merchant ves- 
sels, bearing cargoes to the United States. Off Gal- 
veston, the United States warship Hatteras pursued the 
Alabama and came to close quarters with her. The 
Alabama let loose a broadside, which the Hatteras, on 
account of the position of the Alabama, was unable to 
return. Blake, the commander of the Hatteras, fought 
gallantly, but his ship was sinking under him, and he 
surrendered. 

The Alabama continued her destructive cruise, sink- 
ing over a dozen vessels. At last she was pursued into 
the Indian Ocean, and then, sailing from the Cape 
of Good Hope to Cherbourg, she was found at the 
latter port by the United States sloop-of-war Kear- 



Paths of Boyhood II 

sarge. The Kearsarge took a position outside the harbor, 
and waited for the Alabama to come out. 

The vessels were evenly matched and Semmes, in- 
stead of trying to escape by night, decided to give 
battle to the Kearsarge. 

On a Sunday morning, the Alabama came out of 
the harbor. Semmes had made public his intention to 
engage the Kearsarge, and the shores were lined with 
people. The Kearsarge withdrew until she was seven 
miles from land, to prevent the Alabama seeking 
refuge in neutral limits, and then steered for her 
enemy. The Alabama fired three broadsides at the 
approaching Kearsarge. The latter returned the fire 
with her starboard battery and then sought to pass to 
the sternward of the Alabama, in order to rake her 
with her guns. The Confederate ship thwarted this 
attempt and the Kearsarge continued to circle, endeav- 
oring to close and rake. After the battle had con- 
tinued for an hour, the side of the Alabama was torn 
by shells and her decks were covered with killed and 
wounded. She ceased firing and headed for the shore. 
The Kearsarge overtook her and Semmes, unable to 
reach neutral water, struck his flag and surrendered. 
Twenty minutes later the Alabama sank. 

Forty men were killed and wounded on the Con- 
federate vessel, but on the Kearsarge there were only 
three wounded and none killed. Semmes claimed that 
the Kearsarge was an ironclad that had disguised herself 
as a wooden vessel to lure his unarmored ship into 
battle, but it was shown that the Kearsarge's manner 
of fighting had been fair throughout. 

Thus ended the career of the Alabama, which did so 
much damage to shipping that Great Britain, for hav- 



12 Jungle Roads 

ing allowed her to be built in an English port, was 
forced by arbitration to pay $15,000,000 after the war. 

When the damage done by these and other Confed- 
erate ships procured by Uncle Jimmy is considered, it 
is no wonder that when he entered Union territory after, 
the war, he had to come in disguise. 

With Uncle Jimmy came Mrs. Roosevelt's younger 
brother Irvine, who had been a midshipman upon 
the Alabama, and who fired the last shot before she 
sank. Uncle Jimmy and Uncle Irvine proved to be 
free from bitterness toward the Union cause, and in 
all their talks about the war were open-minded and 
generous. This soon put them on common ground with 
those of the Roosevelt family who had fought for the 
North, and Theodore and the other children, listening 
to the adventures of the two sea-dogs, felt that for all 
of the sorrowful things they had heard about the war, 
there had also been a tremendous lot of romance in it. 
When Theodore came to manhood and wrote the story 
of his own career, he wrote of Uncle Jimmy that he 
was "the nearest approach to Colonel Newcome of 
any man I ever met in actual life." To his friend, 
Dr. Iglehart, he said: "From my earliest recollection I 
have been fed on tales of the sea and of ships. My 
mother's brother was an admiral in the Confederate 
Navy and her deep interest in the Southern cause, and 
her brother's calling led her to talk to me as a little 
shaver about ships, ships, ships, till they sank into the 
depths of my soul!" 

It is this blend of the North and South in Theo- 
dore's blood that made him a President of the entire 
country when he grew up, and as our story proceeds 



Paths of Boyhood 13 

we will see how he stretched out his arms to the great 
West and became its representative too. 

"Conie," who became in the course of years Mrs. 
Douglas Robinson, has given the world in addresses 
here and there, her interesting recollections of Theo- 
dore's boyhood. She refers to him as her "loving, 
sunshiny" brother. 

She describes him, when he was about six, as a little 
solemn boy who when a visitor came to the house, 
would study him carefully, and would, if he liked the 
caller's looks, suggest that he be invited to sit in the 
"castle" chair, a great carved chair which, Theodore 
suggested to the other children, must have come from 
some queer old castle. 

The young naturalist met with a grievous loss, we 
are told by his biographer William Roscoe Thayer, 
when his mother threw away a litter of white mice. 

He complained to her bitterly that she has caused 
a "loss to Science!" 

On another occasion, Mr. Thayer relates, when 
Theodore and a cousin had filled their pockets with 
specimens, they found two toads of a strange variety 
and put them into their hats for safekeeping. As they 
were walking homeward they met Mrs. Hamilton Fish, 
and tipped their hats like little gentlemen. The polite 
deed proved to be a boon for the toads, for they 
sprang from their prisons in the boys' hair and hopped 
away. 

One day, when Theodore was about five years old, 
he bit one of his sisters. He knew that he had done 
a terrible thing the minute his little teeth sunk into 
her sleeve. He knew it first by her outcry, but he was 
made more sure of it when he heard his father seek- 



14 Jungle Roads 

ing him. He ran from the yard into the kitchen, 
seeking shelter with the warm-hearted Irish cook, 
who time and again had taken his part. In passing 
her, he seized a handful of dough, and then crawled 
under the kitchen table, where he lay concealed by her 
ample skirts. 

Theodore's father entered the kitchen. He knew 
the cook was disposed to shield Theodore, and he 
demanded that she tell him where the boy was hiding. 
She kept silent, but she could not resist casting a 
look under the table. Mr. Roosevelt's eyes followed 
her glance, and the secret was out. Dropping on the 
floor, he scrambled after Theodore. The boy, in a last 
despairing attempt to escape punishment, heaved the 
dough at his father, slipped out from the other end 
of the table- and made for the stairs. Half-way up 
them he was caught — and licked! 

Theodore's first victory 

"He was puny and pale and seldom well," said Mrs. 
Robinson. When he was nine, his father, troubled about 
the boy's health, built a porch room, open to the air, and 
fitted it out as a gymnasium. Here, feebly at first, he 
began to build himself into a man of iron endurance. 

" 'My boy,' were the father's words to Theodore, 
'you've the brains, but without a strong body your mind 
can't do anything. Here are the tools: now will you 
build yourself?'" 

"Then," Mrs. Robinson went on, "my brother looked 
at the room, and that determined look came into his 
eyes; that look which evil politicians came to know 
later, and he said: 



Paths of Boyhood 15 

" 'I will make my body !' " 

The fight for health was a long and slow one. Many 
days Theodore had to stay in bed. 

It was then that the love of children for him proved 
itself. They would gather round the bed and he would 
launch out into tales that were full of fights with giants 
and wild beasts. 

Fascinating as was 28 East 20th Street, there were 
other places that lured the boys and girls. Next door, 
at No. 26, lived their Uncle Robert, who was devoted 
to pets, and had parrots, peacocks and even a monkey 
with which to entertain his nephews and nieces. 

Then too, at the home of their paternal grandfather 
at Fourteenth Street and Broadway, fronting Union 
Square, there was a big circular staircase, running 
down from the top floor, which had a huge fascination. 

An absorbing place was the shop of Mr. Bell, the taxi- 
dermist, a cranny which the boy afterwards described as 
being "Somewhat on the order of Air. Venus's shop 
in 'Our Mutual Friend.' " The owner, "a tall, clean- 
shaven, white-haired old gentleman, as straight as an 
Indian," used to be a companion of Audubon's, the fa- 
mous bird-lover. Theodore was becoming more and 
more of a naturalist and to his delight was allowed 
to take lessons from Mr. Bell. 

At one private school Theodore attended a lazy 
schoolmate said to him: 

"Ted, you're a fool!" 

"What do you mean?" Ted asked. 

"I mean you're not able to come to school ! Your 
eyes are weak, and you'll put them out and be blind. 
Your father is rich and you don't have to go to school. 
My father is rich and I expect to make the teacher 



16 Jungle Roads 

expel me. I was expelled from school in Albany, and 
they'll do it here. I'm simply not going to school." By 
this time Ted had risen to his feet. 

"I may put my eyes out," he said, "I am going to be 
educated — I am going to be educated!" 



Paths of Boyhood 17 



III. Theodore Discovers Europe 

TWO boys stood on the deck of the Atlantic steam- 
ship "Scotia." One was a tall, thin, bright-eyed 
lad of ten. The sky-scrapers of Manhattan, which had 
gleamed like fairy towers, had now faded away. The 
shore lines were lost in haze. Nothing was to be seen 
but ships and water. 

"I guess there ought to be a good many fish here!" 
the tall youngster said. "George, get me a small rope 
from somewhere, and we'll play a fishing game." 

George went. There was something commanding in 
the speaker's tone, no matter if his words were ac- 
companied by a friendly grin. Back came George 
with the line. Other boys came with him. The thin 
lad took the rope and climbed on top of a coiled 
cable. 

"Now," he said, "all you fellows lie down flat on 
the deck here, and make believe to swim around like 
fishes. I'll throw one end of the line down to you, 
and the first fellow that catches hold of it is a fish 
that has bit my hook. He must just pull as hard as he 
can, and if he pulls me down off this coil of rope, why, 
then he will be the fisherman and I will be a fish. But 
if he lets go, or if I pull him up here off the deck, why 
I will still be the fisherman. The game is to see how 
many fish each of us can land up here. The one who 
catches the most fish wins." 

The other boys lay flat and made believe to swim ; their 
leader, standing above them on the coiled cable, threw 
down one end of his line — a thin but strong rope. There 



1 8 Jungle Roads 

was a scramble to be the first fish to grasp the line — 
and when a certain boy caught it, there began a 
mighty struggle. It seemed to be much easier for the 
fish to pull the fisherman down than for the fisherman 
to haul up the dead weight of a pretty heavy boy 
lying flat on the deck below him. The boy who was 
fishing braced his feet on the coiled cable, stiffened 
his back, shut his teeth hard, and wound his end of 
the line around his waist, trying by sheer muscle to 
pull the fish up. Soon he found it was hard work to 
lift up a boy as heavy as himself. 

An idea came to him. He pulled less and less, and 
at last ceased trying to pull at all. The fish thought that 
the fisherman was tired out, and commenced to pull, hop- 
ing to draw the fisherman down to the deck. He did 
not succeed at first, and pulled all the harder. He rolled 
over on his back, then on his side, then sat up, all the 
time pulling and twisting and yanking at the line in 
every possible way, and that was just what the fisher- 
man hoped the fish would do. 

Before very long the fish was so out of breath that he 
couldn't pull any longer. Besides, the thin rope had 
cut his hands and made them sore. Then the fisherman 
commenced slowly and steadily to pull on the line, and 
in a very few minutes the fish had been hauled up 
alongside of him on the coil of cable. 

The fisherman was Theodore Roosevelt, then being 
taken by his parents on his first trip across the Atlantic. 
The boy who told the story of Theodore's pranks 
aboard ship was George Cromwell, who brought the 
rope to Theodore, and whose brother played the part 
of the fish. In recalling his experiences, Mr. Crom- 
well wrote: 



Paths of Boyhood 19 

"Even then he was a leader — a masterful, command- 
ing little fellow — who seemed to have a peculiar quality 
of his own of making his playmates obey him, not at 
all because we were afraid, but because we wanted to, 
and somehow felt sure we would have a good time 
and get lots of fun if we did as he said." 

There were three other Roosevelt children, Anna, 
Elliott and Corinne. Anna, whom the children called 
"Bamie," was three years older than Theodore. Elliott, 
called "Ellie," was one year younger, while Corinne, 
termed "Conie," was three years younger. 

The children with the exception of "Bamie," who 
stayed close to her parents, were almost too young 
then to realize that behind every ruined castle was a 
background of history. Instead then, of boring them- 
selves with ruins, guide books and picture galleries, 
"Ellie" and "Conie" and "Ted" searched for museums 
that contained stuffed birds or skeletons, and perhaps 
shocked the solemn custodians by romping among the 
tomb-stones of the great dead. They dived into little 
shops for crackers and rock candy, and conducted 
themselves just as if they were at home in New York 
City, instead of being exiled in a land of cross cham- 
bermaids and strange languages. 

Theodore's devotion to his parents and their tender 
care for him is revealed by the diary he kept. On one 
day he wrote: 

"In the night I had a nightmare dreaming that the 
devil was carrying me away and had coherer morbos 
but mama patted me with her delicate fingers." 

Concerning Oxford he scrawled: 

"We drove around it and saw some colages." 

Of another day's events he wrote: 



20 Jungle Roads 

"Papa and I went for a long roam through the 
wood and had Sunday school in them." 

Further on, describing his homesickness, he wrote: 

"Papa and mama both tried to make me have a so- 
ciable time." 

Theodore, however, had a warm spot in his heart 
for more than the members of his family. Edith 
Carow, the little playmate he had left behind in Union 
Square, was receiving notes from him that told more 
about his longing for home than Westminster Abbey 
or Waterloo, or the palaces and picture galleries he 
was dragged through. In his diary is this sentence: 

"In the evening mama showed me the portrait of Edith 
Carow and her face stirred up in me homesickness and 
longings for the past which will come again never 
aback never." 

However, the period of exile was near its end. In 
May, 1870, the Roosevelts returned to the United 
States. 

THE SECOND VOYAGE 

Theodore, at fourteen, was far more eager to tour 
the world than when he went on the first trip. He, 
along with his sisters and brother, had begun to realize 
what a romantic place the old world really was, and 
all the children were overjoyed when their father, in 
the year 1873, announced that he had been appointed by 
the Government to go as a commissioner of the United 
States to the World's Exposition at Vienna. 

The main purpose of the father in going abroad was 
to benefit the health of Theodore, whose lungs were 
still weak from the asthma which had attacked and 



Paths of Boyhood 21 

clung to him through his childhood. As on the first 
trip, the whole family went along — "one for all and all, 
for one" was a habit with the Roosevelts. 

The parents decided to winter in Egypt and then to 
proceed by easy stages to Vienna, timing their travels 
so as to arrive in the latter city during the time of the 
Exposition. 

In the beginning of the winter of 1872, the Roose- 
velts sailed to Alexandria, the chief seaport of Egypt, 
the city founded at the mouth of the Nile by Alexander 
the Great. The children went with wide-open eyes 
through the city's crooked and narrow streets, peering 
into mosques, staring at the palaces of the wealthy 
Turks— fascinated by these first glimpses of the Orient. 

To a boy like Theodore, who possessed a taste for 
history and a love of the romantic, the history of 
Alexandria, which, when it flourished under the 
Ptolemies, was only surpassed in splendor by Rome 
and Antioch, must have been appealing. The conflicts 
of Christians and heathen, which time and again 
drenched the streets of Alexandria in blood; the city's 
conquest by the Turks ; its great library, which in early 
times was said to contain 700,000 volumes, were things 
to arouse his active fancy. 

The family next traveled through the Holy Land 
and part of Syria; then Greece and Constantinople 
were visited. If Alexandria and Cairo and Constanti- 
nople, were interesting, vastly more so was Jerusalem, 
with its historic background on which was woven the 
figures of David and Solomon, of Christ and his disci- 
ples, of Peter the Hermit and his child crusaders, of 
the brave knight Godfrey de Bouillon, who with his 
knights wrested the city from the Moslems, and of all 



22 Jungle Roads 

the other noble or ignoble personages whose lives had 
been linked with the sacred city. 

Theodore, however, had other things to engage his 
attention besides visiting historic places and listening 
to historic tales. He was now deeply engrossed in the 
study of wild life. His pet scheme, "The Roosevelt 
Museum of Natural History," was well under way 
when this second European trip was proposed, and one 
of the inducements held out to Theodore for making 
the trip was the chance to gather new specimens for 
his collection of bugs and animals and birds. 

The young naturalist rode a donkey on most of his 
travels in Egypt and The Holy Land, and the vim 
with which he drove his mount in pursuit of speci- 
mens was exciting to his family and amusing to his 
guides. 

Theodore's first real collection of natural history 
specimens was done on this journey. He had learned 
a good deal about American bird life, but about the 
birds of Egypt he knew nothing. In Cairo, however, 
he obtained a book by an English clergyman that , 
described a trip the minister had made up the Nile, 
and which contained a list of his bird collection. 
Whenever Theodore discovered a new bird, the book 
was at once consulted. So diligent was he that he 
obtained a collection far more valuable than that gath- 
ered by the usual boy. 

For the other members of the Roosevelt family, 
Theodore's devotion to science was far from an un- 
mixed pleasure. Elliott, for one, openly rebelled 
against the discomforts forced upon him by his younger 
brother's pursuits. 



Paths of Boyhood 23 

"I want a room to myself; away from Theodore!" 
he said to his father. 

"Why do you wish it?" his father asked. 

"Just look at the condition of our room, and you 
will see!" Elliott replied. 

An inspection of the room showed that the boy had 
good ground for complaining. Skins and bottles and 
various other repelling tools and materials were scat- 
tered about the room, and the odor to anyone who did 
not possess a naturalist's strong stomach was, to say 
the least, disagreeable. Elliott secured relief, but not 
At me sacrifice of his ) r ounger brother's pursuits. 
Theodore's father decided that his tastes should not 
be suppressed, however much of a mess he made. The 
collecting and mounting went on. 

When the Roosevelts went from Algiers to Dresden, 
Corinne, Elliott and Theodore were left in the latter 
city. On the recommendation of the American consul, 
they were placed under the care of Dr. Minckwitz, an 
alderman who had been a revolutionist of 1848 and 
had been imprisoned for his efforts in behalf of Ger- 
man liberty. One of the host's sons, a student at the 
University of Leipzig, was known as the "Red Duke"; 
the other son was called "Sir Rhinoceros" because the 
tip of his nose had been cut off in a duel and sewed on 
again. The daughter Anna acted as tutor to the 
children. 

A friendly old painter and author named Wegener 
taught Theodore to draw. The old man took him on 
frequent walks in the country surrounding Dresden, 
helping him to observe the life and habits of birds and 
animals. Perhaps it is to his influence that we owe 



24 Jungle Roads 

the clever sketches with which Theodore, in later life, 
illustrated his letters to his children. 

Theodore's zeal as a collector led him into trouble 
here as everywhere else. One day he brought into the 
Minckwitz kitchen a dead mole and a dead marmot, 
and, in order to secure their skeletons, asked permission 
of Miss Minckwitz to boil them in one of her kettles. 
The horrified lady refused. Nothing daunted, Theodore 
built outside an oven of brick and finished his task. 

Later, Mrs. Roosevelt came to gather up her flock 
and take them on a journey through Switzerland. Miss 
Minckwitz accompanied them. Here mountain-climb- 
ing strengthened Theodore's lungs and helped him to 
develop his muscles. 

At Samaden, a place they visited, Theodore threw 
some of his clothes out of his trunk to make room 
for a huge lot of stones he had collected. Mrs. Roose- 
velt's attention was called to this by a servant, and 
she ordered Theodore to throw away the stones and 
replace the clothes in the trunk. He obeyed, but his 
distracted mother next saw him cramming into his 
pockets all of the stones they could hold. 



Paths of Boyhood 25 



IV. Vacation Adventures 

Where the pools are bright and deep, 
Where the gray trout lies asleep, 
Up the river and over the lea, 
Thafs the way for Billy and me. 

Where the blackbird sings the latest, 
Where the hawthorn blooms the sweetest t 
Where the nestlings chirp and flee, 
That's the way for Billy and me. 

Where the mowers mow the cleanest. 
Where the hay lies thick and greenest t 
There to track the homeward bee, 
Thafs the way for Billy and me! 

Where the hazel bank is steepest, 
Where the shadow falls the deepest, 
Where the clustering nuts fall free t 
Thafs the way for Billy and me." 

— A Boy's Song, by James Hogg. 

WHEN spring time came the only place for these 
romping boys and girls was the open country — 
the pebbly shore, the thick woods, the fields thick with 
daisies. In the country were awaiting all of the pets 
forbidden in a city house; cats, dogs, rabbits, a coon, 
and "General Grant," a Shetland pony. The children 
went barefoot, and played at Indians by staining them- 
selves with pokeberry juice and by building wigwams 
in the woods. The boys also hunted bullfrogs success- 
fully and chased woodchucks with less luck. Ted was 



26 Jungle Roads 

always outdoors, climbing trees and studying bird life. 
He went about with queer things alive in his pockets. 
Sometimes it was a snake! 

The father would ride out in the afternoon by train 
from his business in the city. He was fond of four-in- 
hand driving and he would be met by Mrs. Roosevelt 
and one or two of the children. Into the phaeton he 
would jump, and away they would go, the horses gal- 
loping, the wagon rocking, the youngsters cheering. 

One of Theodore's playmates was John W. Mc- 
Nichols, of Dobbs Ferry, New York, from whom Dr. 
F. C. Iglehart, author of "Theodore Roosevelt, The 
Man as I Knew Him," drew a story that illuminates 
one phase of Theodore's boyhood. Johnnie McNichols 
became acquainted with Theodore when the latter's 
father bought the Paton residence at Dobbs Ferry in the 
summer of 1872. Johnnie's father was engaged in the 
fascinating trade of blacksmith, and Johnnie spent all 
his spare hours around the forge. One day Johnnie 
heard that the Paton Place had been sold, and that the 
owner drove four-in-hand and owned twenty-two 
horses. There were three ponies among the string of 
horses. One belonged to Theodore. The Roosevelt 
coachman brought the ponies to the blacksmith to be 
shod. Theodore came down to ride his pony home. 
Johnnie was invited to ride one of the other ponies. 
Thus the friendship began. Johnnie was about thir- 
teen and Theodore was a year older. 

On another day Johnnie's uncle sent him to bring 
one of the ponies to the smithy. On his way up, 
Johnnie came to a big pond. Someone called him. He 
looked out and saw Theodore in a skiff, rowing toward 
him. 



Paths of Boyhood 27 

"Get in, Johnnie!" cried Theodore. 

"Don't care if I do !" Johnnie said. 

"Want to row?" Theodore asked. 

"Don't mind if I do!" said the other. 

Johnnie took the oar. Theodore sat in the stern. 
He was bare-foot. He dragged his toes in the water 
as Johnnie rowed. "My feet will be your rudder!" 
he cried. 

Up a little stream that flowed into the pond was a 
spring of cool water. The sun was hot and the boys 
grew thirsty. Johnnie had a cocoanut shell. He sawed 
it in half, and marked one "T. R.," scratching his 
own initials on the other. This was possibly the first 
step toward making the initials "T. R." world-famous. 
How sweet and cool the water tasted out of nature's 
own cups! 

The two used the skiff many times after this occa- 
sion. They swam often in the pond, and sometimes 
slipped down to a beach near an old livery stable and 
dived into the Hudson River. 

One day, paddling around the pond in his skiff, Ted 
saw two neighbors driving down the road and decided 
to play a trick on them. He stood up in the boat, 
pretended to take a misstep, and turned the boat up- 
side down. Under the water he went. The neighbors 
ran to the shore and made ready to dive in after him. 
Suddenly they heard a laugh, and looked out to see 
Theodore's head bobbing at them from the far side of 
the upturned skiff. It is recorded that they laughed, 
but, one feels that if the story reached the ears of the 
young joker's parents he must have received a licking. 

Another prank played by Theodore was funnier and 
less serious. One morning, Theodore rode down with 



28 Jungle Roads 

his father to the railroad depot. The coachman drove 
them. On the way back they met Johnnie and gave 
him a ride. 

When they came near the Roosevelt residence, Theo- 
dore persuaded the good-natured coachman to stop the 
horse and lend him his hat and coat. Theodore but- 
toned the coat, and donned the high hat. 

"I want you to play footman!" he said to Johnnie. 

"Ted," Johnnie said, "I got this old hickory shirt on 
and this little straw hat. Your mother will get on 
to us." 

"Do what I tell you to do, Johnnie," Theodore 
pleaded, "you are my footman today!" 

Up to the front of the house the two youngsters 
drove. A servant girl was sweeping oft" the porch. 

"Is Mrs. Roosevelt in?" Theodore asked in digni- 
fied tones. 

"Yes," the girl said. 

"Go ask her to come out and take a ride, I am 
ready. Tell her if she does not come out now she 
can not have any ride at all today." 

Theodore's mother at an upstairs window, overheard. 

"Who is that person calling for me?" she asked. 

The girl said: "I'm not sure, but I think it is Mr. 
Theodore." 

Seeing that the game was up, Theodore drove the 
horse to the stable, but was cheered to hear the girl 
say: 

"Well, whoever it is that is about the finest-looking 
rig that has come to this house this summer." 

Many years later, Theodore was Governor of New 
York State and Johnnie was the Dobbs Ferry black- 
smith. Through the village, to a camp at Peekskill, 



Paths of Boyhood 29 

Roosevelt rode with his brilliant staff. Outside of the 
smithy he saw a big flag hanging. Beneath it stood the 
blacksmith. Up rode the Governor and grasped Mc- 
Nichol's hand. 

"John," he said, "I remember you well. We had 
good times the summer we were boys together." 

Later, when Rot sevelt became President, McNichol 
stopped horseshoeing long enough to write his former 
playmate a letter of congratulation. In reply came a 
personal letter from the President forwarding his 
photograph. 

Then John took a piece of the finest steel he could 
secure; hammered it on his own anvil into a horse- 
shoe; plated it thickly with gold; inscribed on it the 
names of Roosevelt and himself, with a date, and sent 
it to the President. The latter wrote back that he 
would treasure the horseshoe as long as he lived. 



30 Jungle Roads 



V. The First Wilderness Trail 

'Who hath smelt wood smoke at twilight? Who hath heard the 

birch-log burning ? 
Who is quick to read the noises of the night? 
Let him follow with the others, for the young men's feet are 

turning 
To the camps of proved desire and known delight!" 

— Kipling. 



I 



N Aroostook County, Maine, lived Bill Sewall, a 
bearded, kindly-faced warm-hearted trapper, as tall 
as a Maine fir tree. He, and his father before him, 
had acted as guides for hunters and fishermen from 
the cities, and Bill's hunting lodge at Island Falls was 
and is a place full of romance and mystery and ad- 
venture for sportsmen. 

W. Emlen Roosevelt and J. West Roosevelt, cousins 
of Theodore, belonged to the fortunate circle whom 
Bill had led on hunting and fishing trips through the 
Maine forests. In the summer of 1877 they came 
again and brought Theodore with them. Theodore 
then was eighteen. He was now a freshman at Har- 
vard, and his health had been run down by the work 
he had done in preparing to enter college. 

Arthur Cutler, the tutor who had trained Theodore 
for the university, was one of the party. Bill shook 
his head over Theodore when he first met him, and 
agreed with Arthur Cutler when the latter advised 
him that he must be especially careful not to take 
Theodore on hard journeys. 



Paths of Boyhood 31 

"Don't take him on such tramps as you take your- 
self," warned Cutler, "he couldn't stand it. But he 
wouldn't let you know that for a minute. He'd go 
till he dropped rather than admit it. You must watch 
him carefully." 

"He took a lot of watching," Bill said. "Yes, a lot 
of watching. He'd never quit. I remember the time 
we set out from my place up at Island Falls to climb 
Mount Katahdin. That's the tallest mountain we have 
in Maine. We were crossing Wissacataquoik Creek. 
The current is very swift there. Somehow Theodore 
lost one of his shoes. Away it went downstream. All 
he had with him to take the place of shoes was a pair 
of thin-skinned moccasins. The stones and crags on 
the way up cut his feet into tatters. But he kept on, 
with never a murmur of complaint. That's a 
little thing, perhaps ; but he was that way in all things 
— always." 

Bill took a fancy to Theodore from the start. "With- 
in a week," he said, "I made up my mind that he was 
different from anybody that I had ever seen. He 
seemed to have more general information than any 
young fellow I had ever met." 

Bill taught Theodore how to use the rifle — in many 
a hunting adventure in later years Theodore had Se- 
wall to thank for teaching him how to handle his 
gun. This was Theodore's first long trip as a hunter, 
but he had slain his first deer long before. When he 
was fifteen his brother, his cousin and himself camped 
out for the first time in their lives on the shores of 
Lake St. Regis. The other two boys went fishing. 
Roosevelt went off on a deer hunt. With him went the 
two guides, Hank Martin and Mose Sawyer. The first 



32 Jungle Roads 

day of the hunt he not only did not kill a deer — he 
failed to see one that stood within range; and on the 
way home, shot in mistake for one a large owl that 
was perched on a log. 

The next day, goaded by the teasing of his camp-mates, 
he started out again. This time he had better luck. As his 
canoe swung out from between forest-lined banks into 
a little bay, he saw, knee-deep among the water lilies 
that fringed the shore, a yearling buck. His first shot 
killed him. 

Theodore's first trip with Bill Sewall was during the 
closed season for big game hunting and the party con- 
tented themselves with bagging partridges and duck. 
Theodore, however, went back to the camp twice a year 
while he was at college and on these later trips he 
came within range of deer and bear and moose. One 
summer Bill and he took a trip clear to the head- 
quarters of the Aroostook, where the moose were plen- 
tiful. 

The youth did not shrink from the rigors of the 
winters of the north woods. When the fierce winds 
and deep snows descended on Bill's camp, and when 
the summer sportsman was hugging his club-fire in the 
city, Theodore was snowshoeing with Bill and shar- 
ing in the life of the logging camps. Among the 
loggers he met with rough, bluff, simple fellows, and 
his companionship with Bill and these men gave him 
an insight into the life of that great body of Ameri- 
cans who earned their living by hard toil, but in whose 
spirits were those principles of democracy and justice 
and right living that have been the backbone of 
America since the beginning. In his college and home 
life there was the natural temptation to easy living 



Paths of Boyhood 33 

that wealth brings. This was offset by the common 
sense of his parents and his own simple ideals, but 
his contact with these close-to-earth trappers and log- 
gers, and later with the western plainsmen, kept him 
close to the heart of the common people. 

Theodore knew how to keep his mouth shut when 
things were being discussed of which he had no knowl- 
edge, but yet if a thing was said that went contrary to 
his idea of what was right, he was not slow to express 
an opinion. Sewall said: 

"He wanted everything done out in the open. I re- 
member hearing one of our Aroostook men say one 
day, that he always treated every man as a rascal till 
he found out he was honest. Theodore took him up 
at once, and told him that was a very narrow view, — 
a poor encouragement for the other fellow. He said 
that he went the other way about — and regarded every 
man as an honest man until he was convinced other- 
wise." 

Sewall's friendship to the youth he guided through 
the Maine woods was to be richly repaid during the 
coming years, though Bill had no thought of that. 
James Morgan describes how, when Roosevelt as 
President, was touring the state of Maine, he inquired 
repeatedly at Bangor if anyone had seen his friend 
Bill in town. 

At last, after he had sent the chief of police to 
hunt for Bill, the member of Congress called: 

"Mr, President, here is an old friend of yours!" 

Roosevelt turned and saw Bill Sewall. The Presi- 
dent almost hugged the old backwoodsman, telling him 
again and again how pleased he was that he had 
come. 



34 Jungle Roads 

"You're no gladder than I be," said Bill. 

"Aren't you glad you came?" the President asked 
later as Bill rode in the procession and was greeted 
With shouts of "Hello, Bill!" 

"I was glad I came before I left home," was Bill's 
unexpected reply. 

After Bill had taken the train for home the Presi- 
dent praised his simplicity. 

"He would like me just as well if I didn't have 
$10!" he said. 

Later, Bill and his wife were with Roosevelt out 
west. They were also special guests at the White 
House and were shown through the Capitol, not by 
one of the official guides, but by Senator Lodge. The 
crowning honor paid by the President to Bill was to 
make him Collector of Customs for his district. Be- 
fore these things happened, however, the old guide and 
the youth were destined to spend years in each other's 
company on the cattle plains of Dakota, and this story 
will soon take up their stirring adventures in these 
wild lands. 



A KNIGHT ERRANT OF POLITICS 



VI. At Harvard 

A THIN, pale young man, wearing the side-whiskers 
that were in vogue among college men in the 
time of which I write, boarded a street-car in Bos- 
ton, bound for Cambridge. Under his arm he carried 
a basket. As the car bumped along he fell into deep 
thought, and the basket between his feet was for- 
gotten. Suddenly the woman next to the young man 
leaped from her seat with a scream. A panic seized 
the rest of the women in the car. The young man 
sprang to his feet. Then he glanced with near-sighted 
eyes at the floor of the car. "I beg your pardon," he 
stammered, "I should have watched my basket more 
carefully." He stooped down and scrambled to restore 
to their prison the live lobsters he had been carrying. 

The young man was Theodore Roosevelt, then a 
Harvard student. He had brought his love of wild 
things to college with him. The lobsters were intended 
for laboratory use. Live turtles and crawling bugs 
formed part of the atmosphere of his study. One day 
a large turtle sent to him by a friend in the tropics, 
created a turmoil by escaping from its box and start- 
ing on a quest for water. 

It was his fondness for toads and snakes that led the 
men in his class to regard him more as headed for the 
presidency of the Smithsonian Institution than for the 

35 



36 Jungle Roads 

Presidency of the United States. And indeed, when 
Roosevelt himself was asked about his plans at this 
time, he said he wanted to be nothing more than a pro- 
fessor of natural science. When a freshman his father 
had promised to leave him enough money so that he 
could follow the profession of a naturalist, but said that 
he would have to earn a salary as a professor to supple- 
ment his income. 

During the four years of his course, Roosevelt lived 
simply. Instead of renting an expensive suite, as his 
means would have allowed, he occupied two plainly- 
furnished rooms in a private house, then No. 16, now 
No. 88 Winthrop Street. The large front room he 
used as his study, and the rear one as his bedroom. His 
rifle and hunting outfit, stuffed birds, and the skins and 
horns of animals he had killed in the chase, were part 
of the furniture of the room. He was not free from 
the fads the average college youth" indulges in. He 
owned a fast horse and drove also a sporting trap. 
There was a photograph of him taken at that period 
which shows him wearing sideboard whiskers which 
resembled powder puffs. His comrades ridiculed these 
but he held to them bravely. 

Roosevelt had the ability to devote his mind to what- 
ever task was before him. If he was reading, no 
matter what was happening around him, he kept his 
mind intent on his reading to the exclusion of all 
else. 

As a speaker his future success was in doubt. His 
classmates, delighted with their comrade's flounder- 
ing way of speaking, often started a discussion for the 
sole purpose of seeing him aroused. He would grow 
so excited at times that he almost lost the power to 



A" Knight Errant of Politics 37 

talk — his speech became slow and halting and some- 
times stopped entirely. 

Roosevelt describes his college activities in these 
words : 

"By the time I entered Harvard I was able to take 
part in whatever sports I liked. I wrestled and 
sparred and ran a good deal during my four years 
in Cambridge, and though I never came out first I 
got more good out of the exercise than those who 
did, because I immensely enjoyed it and never in- 
jured myself. 

"I was very fond of wrestling and boxing. I think 
I was a good deal of a wrestler and though I never 
won a championship, yet more than once I won my trial 
heats and got into the final round." 

The fact that Roosevelt devoted part of his time to 
boxing at Harvard does not mean that the brutal side 
pf the sport attracted him, but that instead he looked 
upon it as part of his life's needs to know how to 
defend himself. This was impressed upon him early in 
life. 

When he was fourteen, he went alone on a trip 
to Moosehead Lake. On the way he met two bullying 
boys of his own age who tried to make life miserable 
for him. He tried to lick them, but found that either 
one singly was more than a match for him. 

He made up his mind that he should not again be 
left at the mercy of stronger lads, and resolved to 
learn how to defend himself. With his father's ap- 
proval, he started to learn boxing. 

John Long, an ex-prize-fighter, whose rooms were or- 
namented with vivid pictures of ring champions and 
battles, was his first trainer. He was knocked about 



38 Jungle Roads 

for a long time, and showed no fighting quality except 
the power to take punishment. Then Long arranged 
a series of amateur lightweight matches and Theodore 
entered in them. 

His opponents were no more skillful than he. He 
emerged from the contests the possessor of the prize 
cup for his class — a pewter mug worth about fifty 
cents, yet a possession valued beyond price. 

Harry Beech Needham thus pictures Roosevelt in a 
boxing match at college: 

"It was a bout to decide the lightweight champion- 
ship of Harvard. The heavyweight and middleweight 
championships had been awarded. The contest for the 
men under 140 pounds was on. Roosevelt, then a 
junior, had defeated seven men. A senior had as many 
victories to his credit. They were pitted against each 
other in the finals. The senior was quite a bit taller 
than Roosevelt and his reach was longer. He also 
weighed more by six pounds, but Roosevelt was the 
quicker man on his feet and knew more of the science 
of boxing. The first round was vigorously contested. 
Roosevelt closed in at the very outset. Because of 
his bad eyes he realized that infighting gave him his 
only chance to win. Blows were exchanged with light- 
ning rapidity, and they were hard blows. Roosevelt 
drew first blood, but soon his own nose was bleeding. 
At the call of time, however, he got the decision for 
the round. 

"The senior had learned his lesson. Thereafter he 
would not permit Roosevelt to close in on him. With 
his longer reach, and aided by his antagonist's near- 
sightedness, he succeeded in landing frequent blows. 
Roosevelt worked hard, but to no avail. The round 



A Knight Errant of Politics 39 

was awarded to the senior. In the third round the 
senior endeavored to pursue the same tactics, but with 
less success. The result of this round was a draw, 
and an extra round had to be sparred. Here superior 
weight and longer reach began to tell, but Roosevelt 
boxed gamely to the end. Said his antagonist: 'I can 
see him now as he came in fiercely to the attack. But I 
kept him off, taking no chances, and landing at long 
reach. I got the decision, but Roosevelt was far more 
scientific. Given good eyes, he would have defeated 
me easily.' " 

Roosevelt's interest in boxing continued throughout 
his career. He held that boxing and wrestling were 
valuable aids to military training. 

When he became President a United States Senator 
called to see him on important business. He was forced 
to wait a long time. At last he inquired what busi- 
ness was taking up the time of Roosevelt. "He's re- 
ceiving the members of the Harvard Baseball Club !" 
was the unexpected reply. 

On Sunday, during his college days, Roosevelt fol- 
lowed his father's example by teaching in a Sunday- 
school. He did not find a church of his denomination 
in Cambridge, so he took a class in a mission school. 

One day a boy came to the Sunday-school with a black 
eye. Roosevelt asked him where he got it. The boy said he 
had been in a fight. Another boy had sat beside his sis- 
ter and had pinched her. The brother had gone to her 
rescue, trounced her tormentor, and received in turn 
a blackened eye. 

Roosevelt followed the details of the battle with 
more interest than a Sunday-school teacher is expected 
to show. At the end of the story, instead of the scold- 



40 Jungle Roads 

ing which the class expected to hear, he dived into his 
pocket and brought out a dollar. 

"You did just right !" he said, putting the money 
within the little fist that had been clenched in defense 
of girlhood. 

Roosevelt through this act became a hero in the 
eyes of his scholars, but when an account of the af- 
fair reached the ears of the officers of the school they 
disputed the wisdom of his course. Then it came out 
that he was not instructing the boys in the forms of 
worship observed by that church. These matters caused 
Roosevelt to resign his class, but, true to his sense of 
duty, he went to another Sunday-school and taught 
there during the remainder of his college term. 

His opinion of the college student who devotes him- 
self to sport and neglects his studies were stated vig- 
orously by him in after life. In a speech to Harvard 
students he said: 

"I believe heartily in sport. I believe in outdoor 
games, and I do not mind in the least that they are 
rough games — but it is a bad thing for any college 
man to regard sport as the serious business of life." 

Roosevelt's own life at Harvard was an example 
of this. He allowed himself ample time for play, but 
he graduated among the first in his class. 

That Roosevelt the student had many more college 
interests besides athletics; that he was eager to ap- 
proach life from every angle, is shown by the fact 
that he was a member of the Alpha Delta Phi, the 
Porcelain Club, The Natural History Society, of which 
he was vice president, the Art Club, the Finance Club, 
the Glee Club (Associate member), the Harvard Rifle 
Corps, the O. K. Society, of which he was treasurer, 



r A Knight Errant of Politics 41 

and the Harvard Athletic Association, of which he was 
steward. In his senior year he became one of the 
editors of The Advocate, which had as its editor-in- 
chief Alfred Bushnell Hart, professor of American 
history and a historian of note. He ended his studies 
with honorable mention in natural history, had a Com- 
mencement part, and acquired a Phi Beta Kappa key. 

His friends like him because he was in earnest, ori- 
ginal and self-reliant. He did not shrink from defend- 
ing his ideas before a crowded classroom. He seldom 
knew when he was licked. His most significant work 
while at college was the writing of "The Naval War 
of 1812" which became an authority on the subject. 

When a sophomore, he was proposed as a representa- 
tive of his class on the editorial staff of the college 
paper, The Harvard Advocate. Here is the report 
made to the editors by the committee that inquired 
concerning him: 

"I cannot see that he is the kind of man we want, 
although I find that he is a thoroughly good fellow and 
much liked by his classmates. I do not believe that he 
has much literary interest. He spends his spare time 
chipping off" pieces of rock and examining strata, catch- 
ing butterflies and bugs, and would, I think, be better 
suited for a scientific society than for us." 

Later, however, he was appointed a member of the 
staff. The estimate as to his lack of literary interest, 
his college mates found as the years went on, was woe- 
fully wrong. 

His future in politics was foreshadowed by this 
incident of his college days. A political campaign grew 
lively and Theodore, with a group of students, went to 
Boston to carry torch-lights in a Republican parade. 



42 Jungle Roads 

As they marched past a certain house, a man jeered at 
the students and threw a raw potato at them. Roose- 
velt rushed out of line, shook his fist at the man, and 
dared him to come down into the street. The youth 
was ready for a rough-and-tumble fight, but the man 
quailed before his challenge and ceased his insults. 

After his graduation in 1880, Roosevelt married Miss 
Alice Lee, one of the group of young people with whom 
he associated in Boston. Dr. William Draper Lewis 
tells us that it was Prof. A. S. Hill who unexpectedly 
drew out in his classroom the truth that Roosevelt 
was in love. Professor Hill was reading to his class in 
rhetoric an overly-romantic theme. He asked Roose- 
velt to criticise it. Roosevelt stammered. "Mr. Roose- 
velt," popped out the Professor, "what do you think of 
an undergraduate falling in love?" Roosevelt's only 
reply was a blush. Not long afterwards he announced 
his engagement. The two spent the summer of 1881 
in Europe. There Roosevelt met travelers who had 
ascended the Matterhorn. They spoke of the feat as 
though it was one no one else could do. This put the 
American on his mettle and he climbed both the Jung- 
frau and the Matterhorn. Because of these accomplish- 
ments he was made a member of the Alpine Club of 
London. 




THE ROOSEVELT HOME AT 28 EAST TWENTIETH 
STREET, WHERE THEODORE WAS BORN 

(This illustration shows how the building will appear when 
restored by the Woman's Roosevelt Memorial Association) 



A Knight Errant of Politics 43 

VII. The First Political Path 
An Assemblyman at Twenty-two 

"God give us men. The time demands 
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and willing hands; 
Men -whom the lust of office does not kill, 
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy, 
Men who possess opinions and a will, 
Men who have honor, men zvho will not lie, 
Men who can stand before a demagogue, 
And down his treacherous flatteries without winking. 
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the clouds, 
In public duty and in private thinking. 
For, while the rabble with their thumb-worn creeds, 
Their large professions and their little deeds, 
Mingle in selfish strife, lo, freedom weeps, 
Wrong rules the land and waiting justice sleeps." 

— J. G. Holland. 

' I ^HEODORE going in for politics — it is unthink- 

■*- able !" said some of his fashionable friends. 
They came to him with advice. 

"Politics are low — no gentleman can succeed at it!" 
they said. "You will have to rub elbows with the 
groom and the saloon-keeper ! You will lose class !" 

Theodore showed his teeth. "So long as you keep 
to that opinion," he said, "the groom and the saloon- 
keeper will continue to be the governing class. I am 
going down to political headquarters to meet them." 

And so Theodore became a member of the Twenty- 
first District Republican Association of New York. 
The Association held its meetings in, to quote Mr. 
Roosevelt, "a large barn-like room over a saloon." The 



44 Jungle Roads 

furniture was composed of "dingy benches, a dais at 
one end with a table and chair and stout pitcher for 
iced water, and on the walls pictures of General Grant 
and Levi P. Morton." 

If Theodore's own circle of friends had been dis- 
couraging the men he met in Morton Hall were no 
less so, though for opposite reasons. 

"He's a silk-stocking, and he wears eye-glasses. He 
could never learn to wear a slouch hat and shake hands 
with men in shirt sleeves!" one said. "He is just a 
writer looking for things to write about!" another de- 
clared. 

These men, however, soon found that Theodore did 
not object to being called "Teddy"; that for all his 
college education he was as simple in his tastes as 
any of them; that, instead of being weak, he was a 
good boxer and had plenty of red blood in him; that 
he was a forceful speaker and had sound ideas; and 
that he could strike as hard a blow in debate as he 
could in the boxing ring. 

The man to whom Roosevelt gives the credit of giv- 
ing him his start in politics was Joe Murray. 

Roosevelt conducted his campaign with fearlessness. 

A German named Fischer kept a beer saloon on Sixth 
Avenue near Fifty-fifth Street. When Roosevelt was 
introduced to him the German said: 

"Well, Mr. Roosevelt, the liquor interest has not 
been getting a square deal. We are paying excessive 
taxes. I hope you will try to give us some relief when 
you get up to the Legislature." 

"Mr. Fischer, what is the license now?" Mr. Roose- 
velt asked. 

The saloon-keeper named the sum. 

"Well, that's not right !" said Mr. Roosevelt. Fischer 



A Knight Errant of Politics 45 

nodded approvingly, until the candidate continued, "I 
thought it wouI"d be twice as much!" 

This ended Roosevelt's canvass of saloons. Murray- 
hustled him away and told him that it would be better 
for him to solicit votes along Fifth Avenue, and let 
Hess, Bullard and himself attend to the rest of the 
campaign. 

Many athletes among Mr. Roosevelt's college friends 
came to assist him on election day. They went into 
the tough districts where there was danger of election 
frauds, and they watched so well and in such numbers 
that the election proceeded without disorder or cheat- 
ing. Of the twenty-five districts concerned, the "silk- 
stocking" candidate received the highest vote in twenty- 
three. He went to Albany. 

When Roosevelt, at 22, amazed his friends by secur- 
ing an election to the Legislature he was invited to 
New York to make a speech by an exclusive club in 
his native city. Mrs. Douglas Robinson, his sister, in 
a public address, thus pictured him in this ordeal: 

"It was his first speech and as his last message was 
on Americanism, so was his first. He was invited to 
speak before the Nineteenth Century Club. * * * 
The speaker of the night was allowed so long for his 
talk. Then a member of the club was designated to 
rebut the speaker's remarks. The club member was 
allowed fifteen minutes and then the speaker was al- 
lowed ten minutes to rebut the rebuttal. 

"Well, Theodore spoke on Americanism. The ap- 
plause was piteous. * * * Then Dr. St. Clair Mc- 
Kelway, a very brilliant and witty speaker, got up and 
he just floored my brother. He referred scathingly to 
young men and their fondness for 'isms,' and the ap- 
plause was terrific. I was anxious, but I saw my 



46 Jungle Roads 

brother, that smile on his face, arise and I guessed 
he had thought of something. 

" 'I don't want ten minutes, Mr. Chairman,' he said, 
'I don't want five minutes, I just want to ask a ques- 
tion. Mr. Chairman, if all "isms" are fads and must be 
wiped out — how about patriotism ?' " 

THE NEW YORK LEGISLATURE 

Theodore Roosevelt, recalling his first days in the 
Legislature, said that he felt like a boy in a strange 
school. There was plenty of reason for his feeling so. 
The Legislature was Democratic while he was a Repub- 
lican. It was largely composed of men from rural dis- 
tricts or from city sections whose representatives could 
not afford to be called "stuck up." In contrast to 
these, Roosevelt was well dressed, wore eye-glasses and 
bore the label of a "silk stocking." A large number of 
the members were old veterans, while Roosevelt was 
the youngest member. From these hostile viewpoints 
the other members looked at the new-comer, and from 
his lonely position he looked back with equal distrust; 
he had ventured into the lion's den, and if they meant 
to devour him he intended to give them a hard tussle. 

Roosevelt's most trying moment came when he rose 
to make his first speech. He knew the men who had 
sent him to the Legislature were watching him. He 
knew a Congressman's caliber was too often judged 
just by his ability to talk to the Assembly. An old 
countryman, observing Roosevelt's agitation, calmed him 
with this advice 1 : 

"Don't speak until you are sure you have something 
to say and know just what it is; then say it and sit 
down." 



A Knight Errant of Politics 47 

When he began to make friends it was among both 
Republicans and Democrats. Where a man shared 
Roosevelt's ideas or where a man showed himself to 
be a fair fighter on the opposite side of the question, 
the young Assemblyman welcomed his friendship. 

Roosevelt's first battle against the bosses and for the 
people came when a move was made to impeach Judge 
Westbrook for using his office to help a group of fi- 
nanciers to make fortunes out of a wrecked elevated 
railway company. The newspapers demanded action. 
The people wrote letters to their Representatives urg- 
ing them to condemn the Judge. Roosevelt waited for 
his elders to act. The bosses evaded the issue. 

Convinced at last that nothing would be done unless 
he acted, on April 6, 1882, he demanded from the 
floor that a certain prominent judge be impeached by 
the Assembly. 

Public opinion came to his help. He and those 
Assemblymen who were not slaves to the will of the 
people persisted in the fight. The opposing members 
began to hear from the folks back home. The Legis- 
lature yielded. By a vote of 104 to 6 Roosevelt's 
side carried the day. The committee whitewashed the 
accused, but the trial proved that Roosevelt was right 
in making the attack. 

A few days later, Roosevelt sat at lunch with a 
friend, a big New York lawyer, experienced in busi- 
ness and politics. 

"This attack you are making on 'the interests' will 
ruin your promising career," the attorney said, in sub- 
stance, "as a 'reform play' it is all right, but don't 
overplay your hand. Your record in the Legislature 
has shown that you possess ability that will make you 



48 Jungle Roads 

useful in a law office or in business. Why not quit 
politics?" 

"You want me to give in to the 'ring'?" Roosevelt 
asked in amazement. 

"You don't know what a 'ring' is," replied the 
lawyer, "it's more than a few corrupt politicians. Back 
of them are big business men. Joined to them are 
great lawyers, and even judges. You can't use the 
enemies you make, but you will feel their power when 
you try to succeed in business. Quit before you lose 
their good will !" 

"I won't quit!" young Roosevelt said doggedly, "I'm 
going back to the Legislature to fight corrupt men the 
harder!" 

After Roosevelt had served one term in the Legisla- 
ture he was re-elected by his district. He ran 2,000 
votes ahead of his ticket. At the end of this term he 
was again re-elected. 

A SLUGGER SLUGGED 

Roosevelt's battles against wrong and his speeches 
against bosses and grafters made him many enemies. On 
at least one occasion they led to a personal attack 
which one of his biographers thus describes: 

"After a day when he had been a particularly sharp 
thorn in the side of corruption, he moved about the 
lobby of the old hotel, chatting with friends, tossing 
a laugh and a good-natured thrust at those who op- 
posed him, and treating the whole matter from the 
standpoint of one who understands the motives as well 
as the actions of those with whom he is associated. 
He did not pose. He made no pretense of loftier 
morality than those about him, but let them draw their 
own conclusions from his conduct. 



r A Knight Errant of Politics 49 

"At ten o'clock he started to leave the hotel. On the 
way from the upper portion of the lobby, where he 
had been chatting with fellow members, he passed the 
door leading to the buffet. And from that door, as by 
a preconcerted signal from the 'honorable men' with 
whom he had been associating, came a group of fel- 
lows, rather noisy, and full of the jostling which fol- 
lows tarrying at the wine. They were not a pleasant 
lot. One in particular was a pugilist called 'Stubby' 
Collins, and this bully bumped rather forcibly against 
Mr. Roosevelt. The latter was alone, but he saw in 
an instant, with the eye of a man accustomed to col- 
lisions, the fact that this little party had waylaid him 
with a purpose. He paused, fully on his guard, and 
then 'Stubby,' with an appearance of the greatest in- 
dignation, struck at him, demanded angrily, 'What do 
you mean, running into me that way?' 

"The blow did not land. The men who hired 
'Stubby' had not informed him that this young mem- 
ber of the assembly had been one of the very best 
boxers at Harvard, and rather liked a fight. They had 
simply paid the slugger a certain price to 'do up' the 
man who could not take a hint in any other way. 

"In an instant Mr. Roosevelt had chosen his posi- 
tion. It was beyond the group of revellers, and where 
he could keep both them and the more aristocratic party 
of their employers in view. And there, standing quite 
alone, 'Stubby' made his rush. In half a minute the 
thug was beaten. He had met far more than his 
match and the two or three of his friends who ten- 
dered their assistance were gathering themselves from 
the floor of the lobby and wondering if there had not 
been a mistake." 



THE TRAIL LEADS WEST — AND EAST AGAIN 
VIII. A Tenderfoot in the Bad Lands 

"Out where the world is in the making, 
Where fewer hearts in despair are aching, 
That's where the West begins; 
Where there's more of singing and less of sighing, 
Where there's more of giving and less of buying, 
And a man makes friends without half trying — 
That's where the West begins." 

— Arthur Chapman. 

"/~\H boys — another tenderfoot!" 
V^ "Look at his eye-glasses!" 

"See that brand-new hunting outfit!" 

Thus the talk ran down the one street of Medora, a 
primitive little cattle town in what is now North 
Dakota. The man they jeered was Theodore Roosevelt, 
a young man of importance in New York State; but 
an unknown, untried quantity in Medora. 

Roosevelt was a lonely, heartsick man in these days. 
He had dropped politics for the time. His plans were 
unsettled. He was only twenty-five, yet he had lost 
both his wife and his mother, and life seemed hardly 
worth living. Only one thing promised to restore 
his hope and confidence in life — that was the West. It 
called to him and he went. 

In the fall of 1882 he Had hunted along the Red 
River in Dakota. Now, in his hour of grief, it seemed 
to him a good place to go. He left his baby daughter 

50 



Trail Leads JVest — East Again 51 

Alice in the loving care of his elder sister and took a 
train for the Bad Lands. 

Roosevelt found more than adventure in the West. 
He found pioneer bravery and hardihood that made 
him stronger through contact with it. The section 
which first appealed to him was that territory ac- 
quired for $15,000,000 by Thomas Jefferson, when he 
was President, under the terms of the Louisiana Pur- 
chase. France then sold the United States the country 
which now is occupied by the State of Arkansas, Mis- 
souri, Iowa, part of Minnesota, North Dakota, South 
Dakota, Nebraska, most of Kansas, Oklahoma, and 
parts of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and Louisiana. 

Strange indeed was the contrast between the men 
Roosevelt had left behind him in the East and those 
whom he moved among now. 

Hunters and trappers, men of the type of Daniel 
Boone, still lived. Here and there in the crowd that 
passed through Medora, one would meet one of these 
veterans of the hills, clad picturesquely in a fringed 
buckskin hunting shirt. Of all the men in the West 
the hunter was the most independent. He built his 
own hut far from the abodes of men. He provided 
his own food, except for the flour, salt, sugar and tea 
he carried along. He slept on his own deer-skins — 
all that he was dependent upon was the shaggy pony 
that served as his pack-horse. Some of these, tiring 
of the loneliness, took Indian wives. These hunters 
were frowned upon by the plainsmen and called 
"squaw men." 

The cowboys outnumbered the hunters and trappers. 
In addition to those of his own and neighboring ranches, 
he often met strange cow-punchers while in search of 



52 Jungle Roads 

straying horses, and found them friendly, likeable fel- 
lows. Often they took him into their confidence. One 
day he met two young Texans who were exiled from 
their native state because of a race war between 
Americans and Mexicans in which they had become en- 
gaged. A Mexican village had been stormed in re- 
venge for the killing of an American cowboy, and four 
"Greasers" slain. The authorities were in search of the 
men who had witnessed or taken part in the attack, 
and these two thought it well to stay away from the 
border. 

The uproars the cowboys caused when they came to 
town was largely due to their fun-loving spirit. Some- 
times, indeed, they would shoot off high hats, or make 
a man dance by firing bullets in a circle around his 
feet, but usually, Roosevelt tells us, such a deed was 
called forth by some foolish act of the person thus 
treated. 

If cowboys "shot up" a saloon, more than likely they 
put down enough money to pay for the damage; if they 
lost six months' pay in a few days' spree, they rode 
cheerily back to the ranch for another season of the 
hardest kind of work. The cow-puncher who became 
a hard character soon lost his employment. 

Of rascals, however, the country had its full share. 
Some ranch owners themselves were cattle thieves who 
employed bad men to shift unbranded calves to the 
side of his own cows, or to cover blurred brands on 
the cattle of a neighbor with his own brand, or to 
alter a plain brand so that it looked like the brand of 
the robber ranchman. The appointment of trained 
brand inspectors largely put a stop to this evil. 

Then there were bands of thieves who stole horses 



Trail Leads West — East Again 53 

from cow-punchers, hunters or settlers, thus depriv- 
ing them of their most useful and valuable posses- 
sions. Horse-stealing was therefore considered a 
major crime by the men of the frontier and whenever 
a thief was caught by the vigilantes he was hanged in 
short order. 

Good men and bad men; sober workers and bar-room 
loafers; blustering gun-men and quiet men who killed 
in self-defense — Roosevelt rubbed elbows with all. The 
parson who beat a man over the head with an axe; 
the man from Minnesota who slew a bullying Scotch- 
man and soon after led a dance at a cowboys' ball — at 
which our hero went through the lanciers with the 
victor's wife; the French-Canadian trapper fleeing 
from justice; the simple-hearted plainsman who would 
share his last bit of sun-jerked venison with a stranger; 
— these and a score of other picturesque types Roose- 
velt knew. 

Roosevelt's former experiences with rough lumber- 
men in the Maine woods stood him in good stead. He 
had learned how to meet men on their own ground; 
when to take a joke; when not to. He picked out Joe 
Ferris as the man who was to be his chief friend in 
that crowd, and accepted gladly open-hearted Joe's 
invitation to his ranch, the Chimney Butte, about ten 
miles from Medora, on the Little Missouri River. 

There he met Sylvane Ferris, Joe's brother, and 
Arthur N. Merrifield, their partner. Sylvane it was 
who took Roosevelt in search of buffaloes, and in Syl- 
vane's words we give the story of this hunt: 

"It meant hard work to get a buffalo at that time, 
and whether the thin young man could stand the trip 
was a question, but Roosevelt was on horseback and 



54 Jungle Roads 

he rode better than I did, and could stand just as 
much knocking about as I could. 

"On the first night out, when we were twenty-five or 
thirty miles from a settlement, we went into camp 
on the open prairie, with our saddle blankets over us, 
our horses picketed and the picket ropes tied about the 
horns of our saddles, which we used for pillows. In 
the middle of the night there was a rush, our pillows 
were swept from under our heads and our horses went 
tearing off over the prairie, frightened by wolves. 

"Roosevelt was up and off in a minute after the 
horses. 

"On the fourth or fifth day out, I think it was, our 
horses pricked up their ears and I told Roosevelt that 
a buffalo was close at hand. We dismounted and ad- 
vanced to a big 'washout' near, peered over its edge, 
and there stood a huge buffalo bull, calmly feeding and 
unaware of our presence. 

" 'Hit him where that patch of red shows on his side,' 
said I, 'and you've got him !' 

"Roosevelt was cool as a cucumber, took a careful 
aim and fired. Out came the buffalo from the wash- 
out, with blood pouring from his mouth and nose. 
'You've shot him/ I shouted, and so it proved, for the 
buffalo plunged a few steps and fell." 

Roosevelt learned more on this hunt than how to 
shoot a bull bison. His companions were cattlemen, 
and their talk was of cow-punching, round-ups, and the 
prospects of making money at their arduous calling. 

Roosevelt had money awaiting investment. His life 
in the East seemed to him now a closed book. He 
decided to cast his lot with these men in what was 
thought to be a coming cattle country. So carried away 



Trail Leads West — East Again 55 

was he by the prospect that he bought Chimney Butte 
Ranch at once, with Sylvane Ferris and Merrifield as his 
partners, and with Sylvane as ranch manager. He 
paid $45,000 for the ranch, and gave his check at 
once for 810,000, in partial payment. He came East 
three weeks later to prepare for the new mode of life. 



BILL SEWALL JOINS ROOSEVELT 

He wrote to Bill Sewall of his plans and asked if 
Bill and his nephew Dow, whom Roosevelt knew well, 
did not want to go West and begin ranching with him. 
He knew that while Bill was pleasantly located at 
Island Falls and Lake Mattawamkeag, his income was 
not a steady one. He held out the prospect of making 
big money and guaranteed that they would not lose 
anything by making the trip. 

This is the letter that led the two woodsmen to cast 
in their fortunes with Roosevelt: 

"Now, a little plain talk, though I do not think it 
necessary for I know you too well. If you are afraid 
of hard work and privation do not come West. If you 
expect to make a fortune in a year or two, do not come 
West. If you will give up under temporary discour- 
agements, do not come West. If, on the other hand, 
you are willing to work hard, especially the first year; 
if you realize that for a couple of years you cannot 
expect to make much more than you are now making; 
and if you also know that at the end of that time 
you will be in receipt of about a thousand dollars for 
the third year, with an unlimited rise ahead of you and 
a future as bright as you yourself choose to make it — 
then come. Now, I take it for granted you will not 



56 Jungle Roads 

hesitate at this time. So fix up your affairs at once, 
and be ready to start before the end of this month." 

Both Sewall and Dow were married. Dakota seemed 
at the end of the world to them. The fact that they 
made the journey gives ample proof of their faith in 
the would-be ranchman who called to them. 

They reached Medora in July of that year. Their 
wives came later. They found the country even wilder 
than they expected; instead of the trackless forests of 
the north country they found treeless plains where 
the coyote and prairie dogs made their home. 

Roosevelt acquired two ranches, the Chimney Butte 
and a new one forty miles north. On the latter site, 
Roosevelt found the antlers of two elks which had died 
in combat and named the place The Elkhorn. 

Their first job was to build a new house on the 
Elkhorn ranch. They hewed cottonwood logs, the only 
kind of timber they could find. The lumber for the 
roof came from Minneapolis. Roosevelt toiled with 
them. He overheard someone ask Dow what the total 
cut of logs had been. Dow, not knowing that he was 
within hearing, said: 

"Well, Bill cut down fifty-three, I cut forty-nine and 
the boss he beavered seventeen." 

The force of the jest lay, not in the small number 
of trees his ax felled, but in the likening of his chop- 
ping to the gnawing of the beaver. Roosevelt joined 
in the laughter and afterwards told his Eastern friends 
this joke on himself. 

LIFE ON ELKHORN RANCH 

The ranch was completed by Spring. Dow went 
East to escort the women folks to their new home. He 



Trail Leads West — East Again 57 

brought his bride along, and with him came Sewall's 
wife and three-year-old daughter. Sewall's family oc- 
cupied one room; Mr. and Mrs. Dow another; Roose- 
velt another; while the kitchen, dining room, and other 
small rooms were open to all. 

The ranch lay on both sides of the river, a long, low 
house of hewn logs, surrounded by outbuildings. The 
nearest neighbor was ten miles distant. The house 
stood in a glade, protected from the summer's heat 
by an old line of cottonwoods. Thorny underbrush 
lay all about, through which bridle paths and wagon 
roads had been chopped. Deer inhabited this brush, 
sometimes coming to within two hundred yards of the 
house. Sometimes they could be seen peering out of 
their shelter, or warily making their way down to the 
river to drink. 

Inside the ranchhouse there was a primitive sitting 
room with a huge fire place built for winter comfort. 
The house had a broad veranda, shaded by the cotton- 
woods, and here in the hot noontide hours of mid- 
summer, when work was slack, the young ranch-owner 
would sit, stretched back in a rocking chair, reading or 
smoking. Before him lay the river, now nearly dry, 
and on the opposite side the cliffs. 

There was no sound except the note of the mourning 
dove, or the sound of bulls and steers in conflict as they 
came down from the hills to drink at the river. 

A little distance away from the ranch, prairie dogs 
came to the mouth of their burrows and stared curi- 
ously at the intruding ranchmen. On the outskirts of 
these prairie-dog settlements, called "dog towns," foxes, 
ferrets, coyotes, badgers and skunks could be seen steal- 
ing up to prey upon the prairie dogs. 



58 Jungle Roads 

In the Fall, prairie fowl, ducks, geese and other 
water-fowl frequented the river, sometimes alighting 
in the ranch yard. The bagging of these brought to 
the ranchers a delightful change of food. 

Roosevelt related to Dr. F. C. Iglehart, who recorded 
it in his book, this delightful yarn of his ranch life: 

On going to his ranch from the East, he was handed 
condensed milk for his coffee. 

"What does this mean," he said, "condensed milk 
with hundreds of cows with calves in the herds ?" 

"Boss," said the cook, "will you go milkin' with the 
boys to get some cream for tomorrow?" 

"I certainly will !" the young ranch owner replied. 

The next day the men took ponies and ropes and 
went out to the herd. A fine, healthy-looking cow was 
singled out. She gave Roosevelt a look far different 
from the placid one bestowed on the milkman by a 
Long Island cow, kicked up her heels and started to run 
as fast as she could. 

The cowboys pursued and lassoed her. She was 
thrown to the ground and milked by force, but it took 
the entire group to handle her. 

Roosevelt now understood why condensed milk was 
in favor with ranchmen. 

Wall-eyed pike, catfish and other strange fish were 
caught by leaving lines set out overnight in the pools 
of the river. 

The mid-day meal, the chief one of the da}', con- 
sisted of smoked elk meat, home made bread, venison or 
broiled antelope steak, or roasted or fried prairie chick- 
ens, with eggs, butter, wild plums arid tea or coffee. A 
small garden yielded them potatoes and other vege- 
tables. 



Trail Leads West — East Again 59 

For eatables, the Roosevelt ranch fared far better 
than most of the ranches. The usual food for many of 
Roosevelt's neighbors, outside of what was secured 
by hunting, was salt pork, canned goods and bread. 

With the coming of Spring, many kinds of birds ar- 
rived to keep the young naturalist company. He tells 
of having been companioned by the Missouri skylark, 
which sang so high in the air that it was often im- 
possible to see it; the white-shouldered lark bunting,' 1 
whose song resembled the bobolink's; the lark-finch; 
the bluebird; the flicker; the towhee; and the meadow- 
lark. In June came the wood thrush, song sparrow 
and grosbeak. Then, to complete the choir, came black- 
birds and whippoorwills and yellow-heads and even 
owls. 

In the Winter, when the river lay frozen, wolves 
and lynxes traveled up and down the ice, as if it were 
a highroad. 

Roosevelt's cowboys, in their crude way, have borne 
eloquent testimony to his fair dealing and comrade- 
ship. One of them said: 

"He worked for a part of a season as a cowboy. 
He had his own 'string' of horses and they were as 
ugly and ill-tempered as the majority of cow-horses. He 
was not a broncho-breaker as he has been pictured to 
be, and he took no unnecessary chances in mounting 
or endeavoring to tame an especially ugly horse. But 
he did not shrink from riding his own horses when 
they cut up the customary capers of mustangs and 
although he was sometimes thrown and on one or two 
occasions pretty badly bruised and hurt, he stuck to 
his mounts, until he had mastered them." 



6o Jungle Roads 



IX. Along the Cattle Trail 

The Stampede 

"Into the pitchy darkness of the night, 
With spur and quirt and shot and wild halloo, 
Lithe figures speed to check their frenzied flight, 
As on the panic-stricken thousands go! 
And now the storm God's wrath is spent and gone; 
Hushed is his voice upon the mesa's crest; 
The stars peep forth through scudding clouds, and dawn 
Finds wearied riders safe; the herd at rest." 

— E. A. Brininstool. 

FROM Canada to Mexico, through the middle of the 
United States, the cattle country lay. Farms 
were few in this region; the entire district was a huge 
pasture in which there were no restricting fences. Each 
ranchman had to depend on the industry of his cowboys 
and upon the brands he burnt into the sides of his cattle 
to safeguard his stock. 

Roosevelt adopted the Maltese cross as his brand 
for the upper ranch, and on the lower ranch his brands 
were the elkhorn and triangle. Those of his neighbors 
were Three Sevens, The Thistle, the OX, the Quarter 
Circle Diamond, and several other queer devices. Un- 
branded cattle, called "mavericks," when captured at a 
round-up were usually branded by the owner of the 
range on which they were found. 

In the section of country in which Roosevelt set- 



Trail Leads West — East Again 61 

tied the ground was so poor that in winter an average 
of twenty-five acres had to be allowed for each animal ; 
thus on a range ten miles square, there would be found 
just two or three thousand head of stock. 

The greatest danger of loss to the cattlemen came in 
the winter. Herds that drifted North in the summer 
were caught in blizzards or severe winter rains. They 
then found the grass frozen and uneatable and died in 
great numbers. Roosevelt tells of one owner who lost 
thirty-six hundred out of a total of four thousand. The 
remainder were kept alive by feeding them the tops of 
trees. 

Roosevelt and his men were often "on the trail," 
driving cattle from one pasture to another, or taking 
them to a depot for shipment to market. These trips 
sometimes lasted months; the cattle could not be 
hurried; hard toil and patience were the qualities re- 
quired of the men who cared for them. 

As a relief to the monotony of such work, there 
were a series of exciting round-ups which began in 
May and ended in October. The first round-up of the 
season, when most of the calves were branded, was the 
chief event. Stray cattle had to be searched for far 
and wide, and the round up therefor lasted for six or 
seven weeks. The horses used on the ranch, — "Mani- 
tou," "Dynamite Jimmy," "Wire Fence," "Fall Back," 
"Water Skip," and other animals with nick-names as 
strange, had also to be broken into the work that 
lay ahead of them. 

On May 25th the round-up began. Each ranch in 
the district sent its cowboys. Ranches from outside 
the district sent representatives to redeem such of 
their cattle that had strayed into the region. 






62 Jungle Roads 

The outfit from the Chimney Butte ranch consisted 
of the "grub wagon" and twelve cow-punchers. Two 
"horse-wranglers" had charge of the hundred horses 
used in the herding. 

While on this round-up Roosevelt made the mistake 
of choosing as his mounts horses that had not been 
sufficiently broken. One of these bronchos bucked him, 
breaking one of his ribs. Another had the trick of 
balking and then throwing himself over backward. This 
one also threw Roosevelt, injuring his shoulder so that 
he could not use his arm freely for weeks. 

Arriving at the encampment, a scene of wild ex- 
citement followed. Four-horse wagons rushed hither 
and thither; horse-wranglers struggled to keep their 
animals together; broncho-busters toiled to tame un- 
broken horses, sticking to the backs of their vicious 
mounts despite the broncho's bucking and plunging, 
and meeting the jars and bounces and cries of the spec- 
tators with unfailing good humor. 

Every man acted as if his chief business was not to 
herd cattle but to have a frolicl Wrestling matches 
and foot races w r ere engaged in. Men with racing 
ponies attended the round-up; races were run between 
two rows of spectators. Each horse had its enthusi- 
astic friends; the excitement became intense; large 
sums of money w r ere wagered. With waving hands and 
voices hoarse with cheering the cowboys urged on their 
favorite riders and bronchos, and even fired their 
revolvers in the air to stimulate them to victory. 

Then came a day when all arrangements had been 
completed, and the work for which they had come to- 
gether was started. At three o'clock in the morning, 
long before daylight, the men arose and ate a hasty 



Trail Leads West — East Again 63 

breakfast. Then off the cowboys rode to bring in 
every herd of cattle in sight, driving them towards the 
meeting-place. 

This completed, the animals were herded closely 
together while cowboys from each ranch looked through 
the herds and "cut out" those that bore the brands of 
their ranches. Finding such a beast, the cowboy cau- 
tiously drove him to the outskirts of the herd, thwart- 
ing it in its swift attempts to rejoin its fellows. 

Sometimes the "cutting out" resembled a bull-fight — 
except that it was a cow or steer instead of a bull who 
lunged at the rider. The cow-puncher is adept at meet- 
ing such charges, and the beast is quickly roped and 
tied. 

Then, after the animals sought for have been sep- 
arated from the herd, the branding begins. A fire is 
built; the branding irons are heated; the calf is lassoed 
and thrown and held up to the fire by the ropers 
while the man with the heated iron applies the brand. 

Danger comes when a branded maverick turns vic- 
ious when set free and charges the men who have 
roped it. The cowboys scatter; the horses leap and 
twist ; there is a tangle of taut lariats and bleating calves 
and shouting men. 

The chief danger that confronts the herders is a 
stampede that will scatter to the four winds the cattle 
gathered with so much labor. On one occasion Roose- 
velt and his men set out to take a thousand head of 
young cattle down from the Elkhorn ranch to the 
Chimney Butte range. The river was high and it be- 
came necessary to take an inland trail. Water became 
scarce and the cattle went a whole day without drink- 
ing. That night the thirsty, restless animals started to 



64 Jungle Roads 

stampede. Roosevelt and one cow-puncher were on 
guard. They rode desperately around the herd in op- 
posite directions, knowing that if once the cattle broke 
away, there would be no chance of assembling them 
again. They would turn back the herd at one point, 
only to find them breaking forth at another. Sometimes 
their horses tripped over broken ground and the riders 
would somersault out of their saddles. Finally, wet 
with sweat and with their bronchos trembling with ex- 
haustion and excitement, they managed to calm the 
herd. 

A more serious menace came during a round-up, 
when a blizzard swept down upon a herd of two 
thousand head. 

"I guess there's racing and chasing on Cannobie 
Lea, now, sure!" a cowboy with a love of poetry sud- 
denly sang out. Roosevelt's eyes followed his pointing 
finger. The cattle had begun to drift before the lash- 
ing storm. The night guards were unable to control 
them. The other cowboys were mounting and riding 
to the aid of their hard-pressed companions. Roose- 
velt rode with the latter. In front of the fan-shaped 
mass of frightened beasts the cowboys dashed, darting 
to and fro from one danger point to another. With 
every thunder-clap the herd would try to break away. 

Luckily, there were three corrals within a mile of the 
herd, and luckily its drift was towards them. When 
the first corral was reached the shouting, galloping 
riders cut off a part of the cattle and drove them into 
it. The same thing was done at the second corral, and 
again at the third until the entire herd was safely 
quartered. 

One day Roosevelt was chosen to represent the 



Trail Leads West — East Again 65 

cattle-owners of the Little Missouri at a round-up in a 
neighboring territory. Being still considered a tender- 
foot, the young cattleman decided to be as unobtrusive 
as possible in his contact with strange cow-punchers. 

He rode off, driving eight or ten horses before him, 
one of which carried his bedding. The journey took 
two days. Reaching his destination, he went to the 
wagon to which he had been assigned, and reported to 
the wagon boss or cook. His horses he turned into 
the "Saddle-band." 

The cook — a privileged character — grumbled at hav- 
ing the new-comer as an addition to his mess. He 
asked Roosevelt, however, if he wanted anything to eat, 
and Roosevelt, to please him, replied that he could 
wait until the regular meal-time. 

Roosevelt then spread his bedding on the grass, out 
of the way of the bedding of the other cow-boys of the 
group. The wagon foreman asked what brands he rep- 
resented, but the other men merely nodded. Roosevelt 
kept silent, and after a supper of bread, coffee and ba- 
con, went to sleep. 

At three in the morning the cook roused them for 
breakfast. Each man then rolled up and corded his 
bedding. Then the men approached the fire and took 
their breakfast standing or squatting. Then the night 
wrangler brought up the pony herd. Each man singled 
out and mounted his own horse, and in the gray dawn 
they rode away to begin the work of the round-up. 

After the day of galloping and cattle-driving and 
branding, Roosevelt had become acquainted with the 
men, and his qualities had become known. His spec- 
tacles were forgiven; he was treated as one of the 
outfit. 



66 Jungle Roads 

Roosevelt heard much of rough speech during his life 
on the plains, but he shrunk from unclean thought or 
action, and never hesitated to show those who of- 
fended in his presence that their words or deeds dis- 
gusted him. He could speak as vigorously as any of 
his mates when occasion required but no vulgar blas- 
phemy crossed his lips. 

Roosevelt did not become an unusually good roper or 
rider, but on a round-up it was the steady-going man 
rather than the brilliant one who was the most valu- 
able, and the owner of the Elkhorn Ranch was one 
of the former. A cow or calf would run into a thick 
patch of bulberry bush and balk at coming out; a steer 
would grow fighting mad; a calf would try to lie 
down. The fancy rider would be tempted to go on 
and leave the work of bringing in such beasts to 
others, but Roosevelt stayed on the job and herded his 
animal whenever such a case arose. 

There were times when prairie fires started, and as 
they destroy large areas of feeding ground, it was 
necessary for the ranchmen to fight them with all of 
their resources. The method of firefighting was a 
unique one. A steer would be split in half. Each 
half would be dragged by a horse, bloody side down, 
along the line of the fire, the riders going in opposite 
directions. The cowboys on foot would follow the 
horsemen, beating out with horse blankets or "slickers" 
the flames that were not smothered by the carcass of 
the steer. 

The horse would need to be urged, and the men were 
hot, smoke-begrimed and exhausted before the fire was 
put out. 

Roosevelt's experiences with bronchos were both hu- 



Trail Leads West — East Again 67 

morous and painful. Whenever he tried out a new 
broncho, it was an occasion for much fun among 
the cowboys, who, of course, enjoyed seeing "the boss" 
in a "ticklish" situation. 

One day he tried to mount a big sulky horse named 
Ben Butler, which promptly rolled over backwards. 
When he was forced to his feet Ben Butler Balked. The 
men were anxious to start. Sylvane Ferris therefore 
gave Roosevelt his horse, Baldy, and undertook to 
ride Ben Butler himself. 

Roosevelt relates that he was chagrined to hear Syl- 
vane call out, as Ben Butler started off docilely, "Why, 
there's nothing the matter with this horse; he's a plumb 
gentle horse!" 

A few minutes later, however, Sylvane was crying: 

"Come along ! Here, you ! Go on, you ! Hi, hi, fel- 
lows, help me out ! He's lying on me !" 

In response to these frantic appeals, Roosevelt and 
the cowboys were forced to turn back and help to 
pull Sylvane out from under Big Ben, and Roosevelt 
felt that his comrades had been persuaded that his 
own ability as a rider was not so poor after all. 



68 Jungle Roads 



X. Our Hero Floors a Gunman and Prepares to 
Fight a Duel 

"Whatever happens to me, I thank God that I 
have toiled and lived with men." 

— Roosevelt. 

ONE evening, after he had spent the day in pursuit 
of lost horses, Roosevelt came to a settlement on 
the prairies, and rode up to its hotel, which proved to 
be little more than a saloon. Entering the bar-room he 
found himself among a group of sheep-herders who 
were being terrorized by the town's "bad man," a fierce- 
looking tough who brandished a revolver. The ruffian 
spied Roosevelt's gold eye-glasses and his Angora 
"chaps" and decided that here was a dude from the 
East with whom he could have a world of fun. 

He informed the crowd that "four-eyes" was going 
to treat. Roosevelt sat down behind the stove and 
paid no attention to the coarse jests hurled at him. 
His retirement strengthened the bully's belief that here 
was fine meat for sport. Suddenly Roosevelt found 
himself looking into the muzzle of a gun. A curt com- 
mand to walk up to the bar accompanied this display 
of fire-arms. 

The young ranchman arose as if to obey. Then the 
boxer in him came to the fore. His fist shot past the 
gun and landed on the jaw of the desperado. The gun 
went off, but the bullet hit the ceiling and he who had 
brandished it so boldly lay sprawled on the floor in 
deadly fear of another jolt from the fist of Roose- 



Trail Leads West — East Again 69 

velt. He scrambled to his feet, dropped his revolver 
at Roosevelt's demand, and shuffled out of the saloon 
to the jeers of the men he had ruled by terror. 

Another encounter, of which Roosevelt again 
emerged with flying colors, came when the Marquis 
de Mores, in honor of whose daughter the town 
Medora was named, sent word to him that the Roose- 
velt ranch was being built on ground owned by him, and 
that he had better stop work on it. The Marquis's own 
ranch was nearby. He was a pioneer in that region 
and, while he himself and all of the other ranches in 
those days were merely squatters on land owned by 
the Government or by the Northern Pacific Railroad, 
he had come to regard himself as the lord of what he 
surveyed, and had gathered about him a group of 
toughs. It was known that they had killed two men 
who had stayed too long on land claimed by the Mar- 
quis, and they were loud in their threats to harm others 
who came to what they called their master's land. 

The Marquis, in support of his claims, stated that 
his sheep were on the land when Roosevelt settled 
upon it. Roosevelt replied that all he found in his 
neighborhood were dead sheep, and he did not think 
their bones could be used to dispute his possession. 

Then came word that Maunders, captain of the 
forces of de Mores, had declared his intention of 
shooting the new-comer. Roosevelt met this challenge 
by going in person to Maunders' house and inquiring 
of him if he had made such a statement. Awed by the 
steely look in Roosevelt's eyes, Maunders denied hav- 
ing made the threat. 

Later, one of the Marquis's men remarked that there 
would be some dead men around the Elkhorn ranch 



70 Jungle Roads 

some day, and, as if to carry out this threat, six of the 
Marquis's herders rode up, firing their guns in air to 
frighten Roosevelt's men. Sewall, in his quiet, woods- 
man's way, greeted them and invited them into the 
shack. On this occasion too the moral force and physi- 
cal strength possessed by Roosevelt's party tamed the 
ruffians and again trouble was averted. 

Then came a day when the Sheriff arrested some of 
the Marquis's men who had engaged in a shooting 
affray. The trial was held in Medora, and Roose- 
velt's name was brought out in the trial in a way that 
made the Marquis think Roosevelt was using the law 
against him. Thereupon the young cattleman received 
by messenger another note from de Mores. The Mar- 
quis had shifted his ground enough to profess a friendly 
feeling for Roosevelt, but now that the latter had taken 
such action against him, he declared that there was 
"a way of settling such differences between gentlemen." 

Roosevelt's reply was short and to the point. He 
stated that he had no hostile feeling to his neighbor, 
but— 

"As the closing sentence of your letter implies a 
threat, I feel it my duty to say that I am ready at all 
times and all places to answer for my actions." 

When the answer was sent Roosevelt prepared to 
take part in the duel which he thought de Mores in- 
tended to bring about. He decided to choose Win- 
chester rifles as the dueling pieces. 

There was no duel. Instead the Marquis sent Roose- 
velt an invitation to dinner. 

As if in training for his future work as Police Com- 
missioner of New York, Roosevelt gathered with other 
cattle owners in a little, bare freight shanty at Medora, 



Trail Leads West — East Again 71 

for the purpose of putting a curb on the lawless ele- 
ment that was working havoc among the ranches. One 
of the complaints of the cattlemen was that a certain 
deputy sheriff was shielding the roughs who were cre- 
ating the disorder. This man was present at the meet- 
ing. Roosevelt addressed the meeting, but before long 
the cattle-owners saw that their young associate had 
taken a position where he looked the deputy sheriff 
square in the face. They found out too, that instead 
of talking to them, Roosevelt was directing his words 
squarely at the renegade officer. He accused the sher- 
iff of dishonesty and told him that he was totally unfit 
for his office. 

The sheriff carried a revolver at his belt. The 
charges the speaker made were regarded as fighting 
words in that territory. But Roosevelt had the moral 
influence on his side that physical prowess was never 
able to stand against. The sheriff hung his head and said 
never a word, and he went out from among the little 
band of law-upholding frontiersmen a broken man. 

Roosevelt, following his code not to shrink from 
public service when it seemed to be his duty to enter 
upon it, accepted the office of deputy sheriff. 

ROOSEVELT MEETS SETII BULLOCK 

At this time Seth Bullock, who, as one of the Presi- 
dent's closest friends, served as captain of Troop A 
in the Rough Rider regiment, was sheriff in the Black 
Hills district. Roosevelt captured a horse-thief who 
had eluded Seth, and this feat made the sheriff aware 
that there was a young man in the neighborhood who 
had real police stuff in him. 



72 Jungle Roads 

About this time Seth went in search of cattle that 
had strayed from his ranch at Belle Fourche, South 
Dakota, one hundred and sixty miles from Roosevelt's 
ranch. Meanwhile, Roosevelt, with two comrades, had 
ridden south in search of some of his own cattle, and 
out on the prairies he met Seth. 

Seth did not recognize any of the three men, who 
were weary and travel stained. He watched them sus- 
piciously as they approached, but when their identity 
became known he grew friendly, "You see," he ex- 
plained to Roosevelt, "by your looks I thought you 
were some kind of a tin-horn gambling outfit, and that 
I might have to keep an eye on you!" 

Seth soon found that Roosevelt was more than what 
he had first deemed him: — "a tenderfoot from the East 
who had come to the Bad Lands to recover from the 
evil effects of the fast pace of the East." He soon 
grew to be one of the young ranchman's staunchest 
friends. 

Roosevelt admired Seth so much that when he be- 
came President he assigned to the Sheriff the duty of 
giving his four sons a taste of prairie life. "Rope, 
throw and brand them," he told Seth, in true cattlemen's 
language. 

The following letters written to Travers D. Carman 
by George Emlen Roosevelt, the Colonel's cousin, and 
Lieutenant-Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, both published 
in The Outlook, show how well Seth merited the con- 
fidence of the boys' parents: 

"As I remember," wrote George Emlen Roosevelt, 
"I was about twelve years old when I first went out 
West with Ted to Deadwood to go bear-hunting with 
Seth Bullock. He was a man with a reputation through- 



Trail Leads West — East Again 73 

out all that section of the country as a huntsman and a 
dead shot, a very dangerous opponent in any kind of 
a fight. He was our typical old-time cow-puncher 
and Western gun-fighter. That did not seem to be the 
exact training to qualify a man to take care of two 
young boys, and I cannot imagine any one who would 
have, in every way, exercised a better influence. He 
never allowed profanity in the camp while we were 
there; he never permitted us to wander around in 
gambling halls and saloons, which were the natural 
rendezvous in all the small towns we visited; and al- 
though we were living in the mountains and riding a 
good many miles a day, with wonderful skill he saw to 
it that we did not get over-tired or into danger. Of 
course he had an endless fund of stories that he used 
to tell us in the evenings; and he knew all about the 
Black Hills, the mining prospectors, and game, and ex- 
plained it all to us in a way that was a real education. 
In losing Seth Bullock the country has lost one of its pic- 
turesque and truly great characters." 

"My last recollection of Seth was when as a boy of 
twelve or thirteen I went on a camping expedition with 
him," wrote Lieutenant-Colonel Roosevelt, in part. "I 
never shall forget his silhouette as he rode forward 
through the moonlight one night across the Bad Lands, 
his rifle held over the pommel of his saddle. Seth 
combined courage and determination with gentleness and 
kindness. He typifies, to my mind, the men who built 
up the West." 

When he was elected Sheriff of Deadwood, Seth 
Bullock took his job seriously and set out to rid the 
town of the rascals who had brought it a bad repu- 
tation. 



74 Jungle Roads 

Trouble arose at Hidden Treasure Gulch. Twenty 
miners took possession of Hidden Treasure mine and 
threatened to hold it until they were paid a sum they 
claimed to be due them. Seth tried to oust them, but 
was shot at repeatedly. He sent for a company of 
cavalry, and, reinforced by them, lowered burning sul- 
phur into the mine. The miners had to choose between 
smothering or surrendering. They came out and yielded 
themselves to the Federal troops. 

Roosevelt when vice-president secured the appoint- 
ment of Seth as Forest Supervisor of the Black Hills 
Reserve. "As soon as I was appointed," Seth told Mr. 
Carman, "Washington commenced to send a lot of 
dudes out here as Forest Rangers. I didn't want them. 
I wanted Forest Rangers who could sleep out fn the 
open with or without a blanket, put out a fire, and 
catch a horse thief, and I wrote to the Colonel about 
it." Roosevelt persuaded Secretary of the Interior 
Hitchcock to let Seth select his own assistants. 

When Roosevelt was elected President, Seth rode 
in the inaugural parade at the head of a band of 
cowboys. He was appointed United States Marshal in 
South Dakota by Roosevelt. 

At the dedication of Mount Theodore Roosevelt on 
July 4th, 1919, in the Black Hills, Seth headed the com- 
mittee that thus honored his dead chieftain. Less than 
three months later he followed his leader on the trail 
that leads beyond the world. 

FINNIGAN THE OUTLAW 

Roosevelt's crowning work as deputy sheriff came 
when he was called on to arrest three desperadoes, who, 



Trail Leads West — East Again 75 

in fear of the vigilantes, had stolen the only boat he 
possessed in order to escape down the river. 

With the aid of Sewall and Dow, the young deputy 
sheriff built a scow, loaded it with supplies, and 
started in pursuit. On the third day of their jour- 
ney they saw the stolen boat drawn up on a bank. The 
smoke of a campfire rose near it. Roosevelt and his 
comrades landed above the outlaws' camp, arranged 
their rifles and stole up on the shiftless German who 
had been left to guard the outfit while his companions 
went hunting. When the two thieves returned they 
walked into three cocked rifles. One of them, a half- 
breed, obeyed Roosevelt's command to throw up his 
hands, but Finnigan, the burly, red-headed ruffian who 
was the leader, hesitated. Roosevelt walked a few 
paces toward him, covering his chest with his rifle. 
Then the man, with an oath, let his own rifle drop and 
threw his hands high above his head. 

The trip to Dickinson, where the nearest jail was lo- 
cated, proved to be an arduous one. At last they 
came to a cow camp. There they learned that at a 
ranch fifteen miles away a large prairie schooner and 
two tough bronchos for the transportation of the pris- 
oners could be secured. Sewall and Dow went back 
to the boat. Roosevelt put the prisoners in the 
wagon along with an old settler, who drove the horses 
while he walked behind, ankle-deep in mud, with his 
Winchester over his shoulder. After thirty-six hours 
of sleeplessness the wagon jolted into the main street 
of Dickinson, where Roosevelt lodged his captives in 
jail. 



76 Jungle Roads 

ADVENTURES WITH INDIANS 

"Redskins!" The cry was one that used to frighten 
the early settler in the region through which Roose- 
velt roved, but in his day danger from them was not so 
great. True, white trappers who ventured into the 
nearby hunting grounds of the Grosventres, Mandans, 
Sioux and Cheyennes were sometimes plundered and 
killed, and once in a while Cheyennes or Sioux at- 
tacked cowboys on the ranges; but on the other hand, 
hands of peaceful Indians with their squaws and chil- 
dren came to the ranches to trade and hunt. Fre- 
quently Roosevelt visited the wigwams of redskins 
camped in the neighborhood of his ranches and on these 
occasions he found them meek and friendly. 

He came to know the habits of the tribes and in his 
writings in regard to them he did not mince words in 
telling of his opinion of them. An upper class Cherokee 
he considered as good as a white man; his opinion of 
the Nez Perces was high; he had little use for an 
Apache or a "digger Snake," or an A ^apahoe; but he 
found much to admire in the Pueblo, nor did he fail to 
pay tribute to the fighting qualities of the Cheyenne. 
One of his most diligent neighbors was a Chippewa 
half-breed; and he knew two rich cattlemen who had 
taken Indian wives and sent their children to be edu- 
cated in convents. 

It should be borne in mind, however, that his de- 
scription of these tribesmen was written in the early 
eighties. Roosevelt if he were living now to write of 
our Indian brothers, would give them unstinted praise 
for furnishing so many brave young scouts to fight with 
Pershing in France. 



Trail Leads West — East Again 77 

The only dangerous encounter the young rancher had 
with redskins happened when a band of Sioux bucks 
who had broken away from their reservation came 
whooping down on him while he was riding his horse 
Manitou over a lonely part of the prairie. He drew 
rein; dismounted; threw up his rifle and drew a bead 
of the nearest brave. 

"How! Me good Indian!" the redskin shouted, flee- 
ing with his companions. They made several advances 
towards Roosevelt, repeating again that they were good 
Indians, but finding his rifle was still trained at ihem, 
they rode off, hurling curses at him in English. 

That evening Roosevelt learned that the Indians 
were Sioux horse thieves, who had coveted his horse 
and rifle — and perhaps his scalp! 

Young America should realize that it is part of their 
civic duty to see that full justice is done by the white 
man to the Indian. That the Indian can make good 
use of opportunities for self-government is shown in 
the record that has been made by red men who are now 
members of the United States Senate and House of 
Representatives. 

In the army of the United States during the war of 
the nations there were over ten thousand Indians. Two- 
thirds of them were volunteers. 

BOYS AND GIRLS OF THE PRAIRIE 

Roosevelt, in recounting his western experiences, does 
not forget to tell of the sturdy boys and girls he met. 
Where one was found, there was usually many. They 
grew up without much schooling or training; many 
could testify, with Topsy, that they "jest growed." 



78 Jungle Roads 

Sometimes he found that a busy mother, to keep her 
youngest and most mischievous tots out of trouble, had 
picketed them out as a cowboy pickets ponies, by 
driving a stake into the ground and attaching the child 
to it by means of a long leather string tied to its legs. 
It was a hard method of child- raising; the mother her- 
self would have preferred softer means ; but she did the 
best her circumstances allowed — and she raised true, 
stalwart sons and fearless hard-working, uncomplain- 
ing daughters. 



Trail Leads West — East Again 79 



XL Hunting Adventures 

"In hunting, the finding and killing of the game is, after all, 
but a part of the whole. The free, self-reliant, adventurous life, 
with its rugged and stalwart democracy; the wild surroundings, 
the grand beauty of the scenery, the chance to study the ways 
and habits of the woodland creatures — all these unite to give the 
career of the wilderness hunter its peculiar charm." 

— Theodore Roosevelt. 

THE story of Roosevelt's earlier hunting takes the 
reader along many wild and far-reaching trails. 
It begins in the northern woods, near Lake St. Regis, 
where as a youth he went out with two guides, Hank 
Martin and Mose Sawyer, and shot his first deer. His 
canoe swung out from between forest-lined banks into 
a little bay. There he saw, knee-deep among the water 
lilies that fringed the shore, a yearling buck. His first 
shot killed him. 

The road ends in the jungles of Africa, in dense 
wildernesses, which the foot of white man had never 
before penetrated. Some of the early adventures along 
this hazardous trail are told below: 

A MISSISSIPPI BEAR HUNT 

While President, Roosevelt went on a bear hunt in a 
part of the United States he had not previously ex- 
plored — the cane-brakes of Mississippi. This section 
was miles from the railroad and had been the fa- 
vorite hunting ground of General Wade Hampton, 
leader of the Confederate Black Horse Cavalry. 



80 Jungle Roads 

The experiences of the Colonel on this four days' 
trip can best be told in the words of "Ho" Collier, 
a negro swamp guide and bear hunter. Collier was a 
slave in his youth and knew every foot of Mississippi 
soil from Vicksburg to Memphis. It was a great oc- 
casion for him when a President of the United States 
came to hunt under his guidance, and his account shows 
that he made the most of it. Not so much for the 
picture of "Ho," but for the way it reveals the Colonel 
when on a sporting trip, we repeat the story as Frederick 
C. Drinker and Jay Henry Mowbray have passed it on: 

"I know all those gentlemen in de party has had a 
mighty fine time, and as for de President, I never seen 
a man in all my times of hunting in dese woods what 
'joyed a hunt like he did. He was jes' as happy as a 
schoolboy, and he certainly is a dead-game sport. 

"We started out Thursday, and it took us 'bout till 
dark to get in camp and get settled good. So on Friday 
morning, 'fore we started out, Mr. Roosevelt said he 
was awful anxious to kill a b'ar. 

"So when he said dat, I told him dat I was detep 
mined for him to get dat chance, and if I had to run 
a b'ar down and tie him I would see dat he got a 
chance to get a shot. 

"Of course de party all scattered, and we begins to 
hunt, and somehow I felt like I was a'going to get 
a big one up, and sho'nufF, I wasn't wrong, 'cause dat 
b'ar we first started was de biggest he b'ar I ever see 
or heard tell of for a long time. 

"He was a hard one to run down, too. I am here 
to tell yo' and when I heerd dat rascal breaking 
through de cane and my dogs hot after him I knew I 
was a-going to get close after him. I was anxious for 



Trail Leads West — East Again 81 

some one to ride around and get the President to fol- 
low in with us, as I kept on feeling dat he could get 
a big b'ar 'fore long. 

"Whar was de President? Why, Lordy, chile, he 
was a snooking 'round on his own hook in de jungle. 
Dat man wouldn't be tied to nobody. I done make a 
terrible noise, so he'd come whar de b'ar was, but whar 
wuz he? 

"When my dogs did run dat b'ar down he went 
down in a mud hole, and it was kinder thick and hard 
to get at, so I stood round and didn't shoot, case I 
wanted 'the Colonel' to hurry up and come in behind 
me so he could kill the first one. 

"I tried my best to get dat big b'ar to tree, but he 
wouldn't so I thought he was jes' going to get the best 
of my pack, so I hit him with the butt of my gun and 
then throwed my lassoo 'bout his neck and made him 
fast to a wilier tree. 

'Then they done got de President, and den when he 
come up, I says, 'Shoot de b'ar, Colonel, he's tied !' 

" 'Scuse me,' sez Colonel Roosevelt, laffan at de ba'r 
all tied up dar nice and snug, 'Scuse me,' sez he, 'dat's 
too easy.' 

"De President was sholy sort of contempuse wid de 
situation, and I feel more liken a mule dan a hunter. 

"De President said sumpin', I spect it war from de 
Bible, 'bout it ain't no use slayin' de helpless. Dere I 
wuz wif my b'ar done tied up, and I think mighty fast 
to get out of dat fix. 

" 'Stick him,' sez I to Massa Parker, and den I 
showed him how to do de trick. I tell you, my 
honey, dat big rascal didn't las' much longer after dat 
knife went into him. 



82 Jungle Roads 

"I say, 'Colonel, you watch me close an' you sholy 
gits a b'ar.' Den he lafs and sez, 'All right. Ho, I'll 
keep an eye onto you.' 

"We didn't do no huntin' on Sunday, 'ca'se all of us 
is 'ligious. It was awful quiet in de camp, as we wus 
all meditatin' on de foolishness of life and eatin'. I saw 
de President mos' every minute, and I do say dat he 
showed himself to be such a fine, good gentleman dat I 
was always admirin' of him. 

"I tell you we done had a grand dinner, such like 
dey couldn't possibly have at de White House. How 
could dey git 'possum and b'ar, which we had wif 
sweet 'taters dat melt in de President's mouf and mak' 
him look so happy dat he had a good appetite? Den 
we had turkey gobbler, and dis nigger too perlite to say 
dat he eat more dan de President. It done mak's me 
hungry ag'in when I looks back on dat dinner. 

"De President says befoah dinner dat he wants to 
go on a little stroll in de woods. Den one of de 
gentlemen sez to de President: 'Mistoo President, why 
doan you take you gun wid you?' 

"De President he shakes his head an' walks away. 
He says : 'No ; I ain't been alone since a long time 
gone, an' I'se goin' be alone for a little while now.' 

"I seed what he done. He goes off an' sits down 
by de crick, an' looks into de water an' at de woods. 
Spec' he was thinkin', too, but I couldn't tell. Den he 
gits up an' comes in an' settles down to business 
a'eatin' of de 'possum an' de b'ar an' de taters an' 
de gobbler, an' looks like he was wholly happy. 

"De President cheer me up, an' de rest, too. He 
tells me, just like it was nuffin', 'bout some mighty fine 
hunts he done had over in de Rockies, 'bout shootin* 



Trail Leads West — East Again 83 

lions and moose. He say he had some mighty good 
times, 'But Ho!' he says, 'I gwine tell dat he ain' 
never had no nicer time anywhere den right here in 
dese Misippy woods.' Dat's de very words de Colonel 
sez to me. 

"Den he talked to de gentlemen 'bout various things, 
but I ain't gwine tell you dat, 'case we was talkin' 
private. 

"De same hoodoo was on us de third day, but I 
done feel sure de President gits a shot at a b'ar. He 
sholy did nearly git one dat he chased all de way from 
8 to 3 o'clock. 

"Den what you think dat scoun'rel b'ar do? He 
breaks away from de dogs and goes shoppin' acrost a 
ribber, and Ho knows he is done gone for good. Den 
I tole de gentlemen dere wan't no use goin' no furder. 

" 'I spec,' sez de President, laffin, 'dat we ain't goin' 
git no b'ar dis trip.' 

"De President he took de skull of the big b'ar dat 
Mister Parker stick, and he say dat he take dat skull 
home to keep. When we gets ready to leave de camp 
de President was de most jolly of all de gentlemen. 
Dey all say we hates to leave his camp and de Presi- 
dent say it was a d-e-l-i-g-h-t-f-u-1 place, jes' like dat." 

ADVENTURES WITH GRIZZLIES 

The most exciting moments in Roosevelt's western 
hunting expeditions came when he shouldered his rifle 
and went out to search for grizzly. 

In his book, "Outdoor Pastimes of an American 
Hunter," he describes several of his experiences with 
this dangerous animal. 



84 Jungle Roads 

A grizzly he had wounded turned and charged through 
the brush. He came so swiftly that Roosevelt was not 
able to aim his rifle at his brain, as he had planned 
to do. He fired instantly, with both barrels of his 
magazine Winchester. In those days black powder 
was used, and the smoke hung. As the hunter fired 
his last shot, the huge paw of the bear struck at him. 
Roosevelt escaped it by making a desperate leap to 
one side. The bear tried to turn in his direction, but 
in the endeavor fell dead. 

At another time Roosevelt and Merrifield went off 
on a hunt for grizzlies. 

Blacktail deer were in the woods, as well as bands 
of cow and calf elk, but they found no signs of grizzly. 
Roosevelt and Merrifield separated but later Merrifield 
joined him and announced that there were bear tracks 
about ten miles distant. They rode to the spot. 

Roosevelt there came across the huge footprints of a 
great grizzly which had evidently passed a short time 
before. He followed the tracks in the fading twilight 
until it became too dark to see them, and had to give 
up the pursuit as darkness closed in about him. 

Merrifield was a skillful tracker, and later he took up 
the trail at once where it had been left off. The beast's 
footprints were plain in the dust. The trail turned into 
a thicket. 

Merrifield suddenly sank on one knee. Roosevelt 
strode past him with his rifle ready. The great bear 
rose slowly from his bed among young spruces. Sud- 
denly he caught sight of the hunters and dropped on 
his fores, the hair on his neck and shoulders seeming 
to bristle as he turned toward them. 

The bear's head was bent down. Roosevelt looked 



Trail Leads West — East Again 85 

squarely into the small, glittering eyes and pulled 
his trigger. The bear half rose, then toppled over in 
the death throes. The bullet had gone into his brain. 

Merrifield was disappointed. He did not fear a griz- 
zly. He wanted to see the bear come toward them in 
a typical grizzly charge and to bring him down in the 
rush. Roosevelt, not so much a veteran at bear-hunt- 
ing, was satisfied that he had brought down the mon- 
strous fellow before his charge commenced. 

Roosevelt wore on his hunting trips a suit of fringed 
buckskin, similar to that worn by the old wilderness 
hunter. He carried a 40-90 Winchester, which bore a 
scar received in a battle with a mountain lion, which 
occurred in Colorado. When he came to close quarters 
with the cougar, he thrust the stock of his gun into 
its mouth. The teeth of the animal sank into the 
wood, leaving a permanent mark. 

To his cartridge belt, a hunting knife was attached. 
Most of his bullets were soft-nosed, though he also 
carried bullets encased in steel jackets, for long-dis- 
tance shooting. 

A TOUGH "TENDERFOOT" 

The Colonel had all sorts of companions on his hunt- 
ing trips. Most of his guides or shooting partners were 
thoroughly congenial, but on one occasion, shortly after 
he had gone West, he picked a guide who, after they 
had gone into the lonely mountains, caused trouble. 
The Colonel thus tells the story in his Autobiography: 

"For the only time in all my experience, I had a 
difficulty with my guide. He was a crippled old moun- 
tain man, with a profound contempt for 'tenderfeet,' 
a contempt that in my case was accentuated by the 



86 Jungle Roads 

fact that I wore spectacles — which at that day and in 
that region were usually held to indicate a defective 
moral character in the wearer. He had never pre- 
viously acted as guide, or, as he expressed it, 'trundled 
a tenderfoot,' and though a good hunter, who showed 
me much game, our experience together was not happy. 
He was very rheumatic and liked to lie abed late, so 
that I usually had to get breakfast, and, in fact, do most 
of the work around camp. Finally one day he declined 
to go out with me, saying that he had a pain. When, 
that afternoon, I got back to camp I speedily found 
what the 'pain' was. We were traveling very light 
indeed, I having practically nothing but my buffalo 
sleeping-bag, my wash kit, and a pair of socks. I had 
also taken a flask of whisky for emergencies — al- 
though, as I found that the emergencies never arose and 
that tea was better than whisky when a man was cold 
or done out, I abandoned the practice of taking whisky 
on hunting trips twenty years ago. When I got back to 
camp the old fellow was sitting on a tree-trunk, very erect 
with his rifle across his knees, and in response to my nod 
of greeting he merely leered at me. I leaned my rifle 
against a tree, walked over to where my bed was lying, 
and, happening to rummage in it for something, I 
found the whiskey flask was empty. I turned on him 
at once and accused him of having drunk it, to which he 
merely responded by asking what I was going to do 
about it. There did not seem much to do, so I said 
that we would part company — we were only four 
or five days from a settlement — and I would go in 
alone, taking one of the horses. He responded by 
cocking his rifle and saying that I could go alone and 
be damned to me, but I could not take any horse. I 



Trail Leads West — East Again 87 

answered 'all right,' that if I could not I could not, 
and began to move around to get some flour and salt 
pork. He was misled by my quietness and by the fact 
that I had not in any way resented either his actions 
or 'his language during the days we had been together, 
and did not watch me as closely as he ought to have 
done. He was sitting with the cocked rifle across his 
knees, the muzzle to the left. My rifle was leaning 
against a tree near the cooking things to his right. 
Managing to get near it, I whipped it up and threw 
the bead on him, calling, 'Hands up !' He of course 
put up his hands, and then said, 'Oh, come, I was only 
joking'; to which I answered, 'Well, I am not. Now 
straighten your legs and let your rifle go to the 
ground.' He remonstrated, saying the rifle would go 
off, and I told him to let it go off. However, he 
straightened his legs in such fashion that it came to 
the ground without a jar. I then made him move back, 
and picked up the rifle. By this time he was quite 
sober, and really did not seem angry, looking at me 
quizzically. He told me that if I would give him back 
his rifle, he would call it quits and we could go on to- 
gether. I did not think it best to trust him, so I told 
him that our hunt was pretty well through, anyway, 
and that I would go home. There was a blasted pine 
on the trail, in plain view of the camp, about a mile 
off, and I told him that I would leave his rifle at that 
blasted pine if I could see him in camp, but that he 
must not come after me, for if he did I should assume 
that it was with hostile intent and would shoot. He 
said he had no intention of coming after me; and as he 
was very much crippled with rheumatism, I did not be- 
lieve he would do so. 



88 Jungle Roads 

"Accordingly I took the little mare, with nothing but 
some flour, bacon, and tea, and my bed-roll, and started 
off. At the blasted pine I looked around, and as I could 
see him in camp, I left his rifle there. I then traveled 
till dark, and that night, for the only time in my ex- 
perience, I used in camping a trick of the old-time 
trappers in the Indian days. I did not believe I would 
be followed, but still it was not possible to be sure, so, 
after getting supper, while my pony fed round, I left 
the fire burning, repacked the mare and pushed ahead 
until it literally became so dark that I could not see. 
Then I picketed the mare, slept where I was without a 
fire until the first streak of dawn, and then pushed 
on for a couple of hours before halting to take break- 
fast and to let the little mare have a good feed. No 
plainsman needs to be told that a man should not lie 
near a fire if there is danger of an enemy creeping up 
on him, and that above all a man should not put him- 
self in a position where he can be ambushed at dawn. 
On this second day I lost the trail, and toward night- 
fall gave up the effort to find it, camped where I was, 
and went out to shoot a grouse for supper. 

"When I reached the settlement and went into the 
store, the storekeeper identified me by remarking: 
'You're the tenderfoot that old Hank was trundling, 
ain't you?' I admitted that I was." 

A COUGAR HUNT 

In 1901, Roosevelt entered the Rockies for a five- 
week cougar hunt. The chase is made with hounds, 
and John B. Goff, the hunter who led the party, had 
a pack that was trained to follow and bring down 
cougars, bobcats and even bears. It took three of 



Trail Leads West — East Again 89 

these dogs to kill a female cougar, and they could 
keep a big male in check until the hunters approached 
to kill it with a knife. 

The hunters followed the dogs on horses, which were 
hardy animals that could climb hills and rocks with the 
sureness of goats. 

The cougar, called by some writers panther, puma, 
mountain lion or Mexican lion, is a strange creature 
that is timid one moment and bloodthirsty the next. 
It kills sheep, pigs and colts, and loves to feed on 
mountain sheep. Sometimes it even attacks children. 
When pursued by dogs it takes to a tree. Gofr and his 
dogs had in this way killed three hundred of them. 

Snow had fallen on the ground covered by the 
hunt and Roosevelt and his comrades were able to track 
the cougars by their footprints. They could tell too by 
the trail where the cougars had killed deer or other 
beasts. The party killed fourteen cougars, measuring 
in length from four to eight feet. 

The largest cougar killed was brought down by a 
knife-thrust delivered by Roosevelt. The baying of the 
dogs told the hunters that they had found and treed 
the brute. The men came up and found the dogs 
growling and snarling around the tree. Three of the 
dogs had been badly scratched and bitten. To have 
shot at the cougar would have been to endanger the 
dogs. Therefore, while three of the dogs engaged the 
animal, biting and pulling at its head, Roosevelt found 
a way to deliver its death-blow. 

Another cougar kept up a low savage growling as 
Roosevelt approached, glaring at him with its yellow 
eyes, waiting for a chance to claw or bite him, but he 
killed this one with a bullet. 



90 Jungle Roads 

ABERNETHY AND THE WOLF 

Another exciting hunt with horses and dogs came 
when Roosevelt followed John Abernethy in a chase 
after coyotes. Here Roosevelt was more of a spectator 
than a performer, watching while Abernethy mounted 
on a tough white horse and accompanied by grey- 
hounds, started to pursue a coyote. They chased the 
coyote until it was tired and until all the grey-hounds 
except one had grown weary and fallen back. The 
hunter at last overtook it and headed it off. The grey- 
hound made a rush, pinned it by its hind leg, and 
threw it. 

The wolf bit the grey-hound and the dog let go. At 
this, Abernethy leaped from his horse and sprang on 
top of the wolf. With one hand he held the reins 
of his horse. With the other he jammed his thickly 
gloved hand down the wolf's throat, seizing the lower 
jaw and bending it so that the wolf could not bite 
him. He held the wolf in this way until it stopped its 
struggles. Roosevelt, when he came up, found Aber- 
nethy sitting on the live wolf with as much ease as if it 
were a cushion. 

IN YELLOWSTONE PARK 

Yellowstone Park, in which the comrades Roosevelt 
and Burroughs spent sixteen days of keen enjoyment, 
has a background of history well worth exploring. 
When, in 1804-6, Lewis and Clark made their famous 
pioneer trip across the continent, they sent a map to 
President Thomas Jefferson in which they gave the 
name "Yellow Stone" to a river which emptied into the 
Missouri. The reason for this name lies in the fact 
that it embraces the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, 



Trail Leads West — East Again 91 

the walls of which are brilliantly colored with tints of 
yellow and orange. 

Geysers abound in these regions, and it is said that 
the Indians avoided this locality because of their fear 
of what seemed to them to belong to the supernatural. 

Fifty years passed after the discovery of the head- 
waters of the Yellowstone before this remarkable re- 
gion began to be known to the people of America. 
Trappers and hunters were its only inhabitants. 

The place now known as Yellowstone Park was first 
discovered by a private soldier named John Colter, 
who was a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition. 
He was released by them at his own request, in order 
that he might trap beavers. His chiefs wrote of him: 

"The example of this man shows how easily men may 
be weaned from the habits of civilized life to the ruder 
but scarcely less fascinating manners of the woods." 

Colter, parting company with the expedition, ex- 
plored alone what is now Yellowstone Park and later 
described his journeys to Lewis and Clark, who charted 
them from his descriptions. 

In one of his trips Colter was captured by Indians 
and told to run for his life. He outstripped a hundred 
savages, seized the spear of the only Indian who could 
overtake him, and slew him. Eleven days later, naked 
and almost starved, he reached a fort. 

The Yellowstone expedition of 1870, known as the 
Washburn-Doane expedition, discovered marvelous falls, 
geysers and hot springs as well as superbly beautiful 
landscapes, and convinced the nation of the importance 
of preserving the wonders of the region, and in 1872 
Congress passed a bill creating it a game preserve and 
a public park. 



92 Jungle Roads 

When Roosevelt and John Burroughs visited Yellow- 
stone Park, the Colonel was much amused to learn that 
the bears which lived in the park had become so used 
to seeing tourists that they were for the most part 
tame and friendly. 

It was a common sight, indeed, to see in the summer 
months the bears come up to the back of the hotels 
and feed from the garbage heaps. Sometimes, in 
digging through the garbage, empty tin cans stuck on 
their paws. On one occasion, the old guide, Buffalo 
Jones, seeing a bear with a tin can on its paw which 
it was unable to dislodge, lassoed the bear, tied him 
up, and cut the tin can off his paw. 

To Roosevelt, who had been used to hunting griz- 
zlies in their native wilds, it was strange to read no- 
tices posted on the trees warning tourists that the bears 
were really wild animals and should not be fed or 
teased. He heard that one tourist, deciding to find 
out how near he could come to a bear, approached so 
near that he was knocked down by an ill-tempered she- 
bear. The man's wife, however, came to the rescue, and 
drove the bear off — with her umbrella ! 

Sometimes the bears, not satisfied with what they 
found in the garbage, entered the kitchens, drove the 
cooks away from their food, and helped themselves 
to it. 

One hotel manager complained to the park supervisor 
that as many as seventeen bears approached in an 
evening at his garbage heap. He asked that a trooper 
be sent to keep tourists from coming too close to the 
bears and suggested, not the driving off of the bears, 
but the arrest of two campers! 



Jrail Leads West — East Again 93 



XII. The Rancher Returns to the East 

"All day on the prair-ee in the saddle I ride, 
Not even a dog, boys, to trot by my side; 
My fire I must kindle with chips gathered round; 
And boil my own coffee without being ground. 
I wash in a pool and I wipe on a sack; 
I car-re e my ward-robe all on my own back; 
My books are the brooks and my sermon the stones; 
My parson's a wolf on a pulpit of bones." 

— Old Trail Song. 

ROOSEVELT was forced to admit that his ranching 
enterprise was a failure. For a long time he hesi- 
tated to look this fact in the face. He had invested 
about $125,000 in cattle and horses (of horses alone 
there were one hundred on his ranch) and he had done 
this against the wishes of some of his business advisers 
in the East. 

When Roosevelt first looked into the prospects of 
making money by cattle-raising, the outlook was prom- 
ising, but shortly after he entered the business the 
price of cattle began to go down, and the drop con- 
tinued steadily during his career as a ranchman. The 
Bad Lands had proved themselves to be as bad for cattle 
as for the other things that had earned them their 
name. The winters were very hard and long and the 
summer suns scorched and dried up the vegetation. 
Many of the cattle died. 

After spending two years and four months in trying 
to put his ranches on a profitable basis, his friend Dow 
returned from Chicago, to which place he had gone to 



94 Jungle Roads 

sell several hundred heads of cattle, with the report that 
the market's price for the stock was $10 less per head 
than the sum it had cost to raise the cattle and ship 
them to the stock-yards. This meant a severe loss and 
the prospects were that the losses would grow greater 
in the future. 

Roosevelt hated to own that he was beaten; yet he 
was courageous enough to admit that he could not 
fight against summer droughts and blighting winter 
storms. He decided to abandon cattle-raising. His 
agreement with Sewall and Dow had resolved itself 
into an arrangement to share the profits with them — 
if there were any to share. Should there be losses 
they were to lose nothing, and were to be paid wages 
regularly. 

Sewall and Dow had brought their wives to the ranch 
■ — which made the place vastly more home-like for 
Roosevelt and all concerned. 

Babies had come, too — "the Bad Land Babies" they 
were called. Cowboys came from near and far to see 
the infants, and Roosevelt, with his fondness for chil- 
dren, was of course, delighted to have them on the 
ranch. But the ranch home was to be abandoned. 

Long before the end of the ranching venture, Sewall 
had had an inkling that the East would call his em- 
ployer back to it. When the two started ranching, 
Roosevelt told Sewall that he had nothing to live for; 
that all that was dear to him lay buried in the East. 
As time went by this feeling passed away. He took 
several trips to New York to consult with his pub- 
lishers; to talk over old times with his friends; and 
to put his finger on the pulse of politics. 

Bill predicted to him that the country would some 



Trail Leads West — East Again 95 

day call him to be President. It seemed like a wild 
dream to the young rancher, and he scoffed at the 
thought. But the voice of the people was beginning to 
be heard even then. His friends in the East wanted 
him to run for Mayor of New York City. 

It was to Sewall and Dow that the young ranch- 
owner first spoke of his intention to give up cattle- 
raising. 

Sewall and Dow and their wives said with one voice 
that they would go back East too. Roosevelt had 
become engaged to Miss Edith Kermit Carow, the com- 
panion of his boyhood, and the new avenues of life 
which were opening for him in his home city helped 
to soothe the hurt he felt at giving up his life in the 
West. 

Roosevelt ran for Mayor of New York on an Inde- 
pendent ticket shortly after he came East, and made a 
vigorous campaign. The fight, however, was a hope- 
less one from the start. Tammany Hall nominated a 
good candidate, Abram S. Hewitt, and Hewitt won. 

Roosevelt went abroad. In December, at St. George's 
Church, London, he married Miss Carow. The cere- 
mony was performed by a canon of the English Church 
who was a cousin of the bride. Miss Carow, like 
Roosevelt, had traveled widely, and was a woman of 
broad culture. Roosevelt's letters to his children are 
full of loving references to his wife, and one can 
read a wealth of devotion between the lines. He 
brought his bride back to the new house he had built 
two years before, now known to the country as Saga- 
more Hill, Oyster Bay. 

Although Roosevelt kept possession of his ranches 
for several years more, and returned to them on sev- 



96 Jungle Roads 

eral hunting expeditions, his days as a cattleman 
were over. Some of his Western neighbors took over 
his cattle on shares, but the following winter proved 
to be one of the hardest that had ever visited the Bad 
Lands. The snow lay so deep that it was impossible 
to ride a horse a mile. The cattle perished by thou- 
sands. He found his stock lying dead everywhere. 
Roosevelt got very little money back out of the stock 
he had left behind him. At the close of winter he 
went West to count the damage. In a letter to 
Sewall and Dow he summed up the losses in this way: 

"You boys were lucky to get out when you did; if 
you had waited till this spring I guess it would have 
been a case of walking." 

In 1900, Roosevelt on a trip to Helena, Montana, 
stopped off at Medora. A reporter for the New York 
Telegraph who went with him on the trip thus de- 
scribed the scenes and incidents of the visit: 

"The creaking, weather-beaten ruins of the old pack- 
ing house and stockyard built in that treeless and al- 
most waterless wilderness by the ill-fated Marquis de 
Mores were yet standing, loot to the owl, the prairie 
dog and the coyote, when the little crowd of old 
neighbors (they had ridden in from incredible dis- 
tances) grabbed him in their arms on the station plat- 
form, called him 'Teddy' and allowed that he hadn't 
changed 'so's you could notice it.' And I found that 
they didn't lionize him as a mighty hunter, nor yet as 
a rough-riding Centaur, nor even as a crack shot with 
pistol or rifle. For these were not uncommon qualifi- 
cations in that country and Roosevelt did not equal, 
much less excel, his old comrades of the trail either as 
a horseman or marksman. 



Trail Leads West — East Again 97 

"I was a bit disappointed to find, for instance, that 
'Old Man' Myers, Roosevelt's old ranch cook, dated his 
first access of admiration for the Colonel to the day 
when the outfit, hungry and tired, ran out of flour and 
had to eat biscuits made of ground cow peas. 'Y' never 
heard such a holler in yer life as them buckaroos put 
up/ said Myers, 'every larrupin' cowpuncher in the 
bunch let out a squawk 'cept th' tenderfoot. Teddy 
never hollered a-tall, and et 'em like he liked 'em. I 
been for him ever sence.' 

" 'Standing the gaff' is what they call it out West, 
but it was Roosevelt's uncomplaining and even cheer- 
ful patience under hardship, accident and ridicule that 
made him 'strong' with the range riders and hunters 
of the old Medora days. Many a broncho 'outlaw' 
worsted him in his early efforts at 'bustin' those ener- 
getic man-haters, and his persistent attempts to hold 
his own with the hip-shots and hair-trigger riflemen 
of the region came very near saddling him with the 
nickname of Telescope Teddy' because in addition to 
the thick lenses of his eyeglasses he had all of the 'long 
guns' fitted with small telescopes for long-distance 
shooting. 

" 'He couldn't hit a flock o' ranch houses without his 
spyglass,' Myers told me, 'but oncet he spotted it, he 
could cut off a kiote's tail runnin !' " 

"And I found that his old neighbors out there loved 
him chiefly because he had the grit to keep on trying, 
and the stamina which prevents strong characters from 
changing 'so's you can notice it'." 

If Roosevelt and his lieutenants failed to become cattle- 
kings, there were many other benefits derived from 
his career as a plainsman whose value more than com- 



98 Jungle Roads 

pensated him for his losses. He returned East with 
hardened lungs, a strong constitution; an ability to 
take hard knocks and do the work of three or four 
ordinary men. He found time to write the life of 
Thomas Hart Benton, who was one of the first states- 
men to arise to national prominence from the country 
west of the Mississippi ; and to become a valued con- 
tributor to great magazines. He knew how to talk 
and act with all sorts of men. He said, later in his career, 
that his experience in democracy while on the plains 
helped to make him President. 



Trail Leads West— East Again 99 



XIII. The Men With the "Night-Sticks" 

DON'T go— you are needed here in Washington!" 
The speaker was U. S. Civil Service Commis- 
sioner John A. Procter, and the man he spoke to was 
Theodore Roosevelt. 

Procter was one of those who tried to dissuade 
Roosevelt from accepting the invitation that now came 
to him from Mayor Strong of New York to become 
President of the Board of Police Commissioners for the 
metropolis. 

New York City, in electing Mayor Strong, had reg- 
istered its opinion that the time had come to reform its 
police department. Roosevelt seemed to be an ideal 
man for the office. 

During the six years following Roosevelt's return 
from the West, he had filled the office of U. S. Civil 
Service Commissioner. When President Benjamin 
Harrison appointed him to the position he had desired in- 
stead to be Assistant Secretary of State, but he did 
not sulk. His friends told him the office was too 
small for him. He proved that they were wrong. For 
six years he toiled with marked success to make it 
easy for ambitious, hard-working young men to gain a 
place in the government service without political in- 
fluence, and when he left the office his successful battle 
against spoilsmen had made him a national figure. 
Thousands of obscure young men and women remem- 
bered with gratitude that he had made it possible for 
them to succeed by their own efforts instead of by 
"pull." 



ioo Jungle Roads 

"Old friend!" Roosevelt said to Procter when the 
latter protested against his taking charge of Manhat- 
tan's police force, "I have made up my mind that it is 
right for me to go." 

That settled it — he went. The letter that President 
Cleveland sent him in accepting his resignation showed 
how much this sturdy Democrat appreciated Roose- 
velt's vigorous and fearless conduct in office. 

"I have come to help — 

Theodore Roosevelt." 

One day Jacob Riis, a reporter on the New York 
Sun, found a visiting card on his desk with this 
message scrawled on it. 

Riis was a man with ideals. When he saw the 
condition of the poor in the crowded slums of the 
metropolis, he was moved to give all the time he 
could spare from his daily work to make life easier 
for them. To create a public sentiment that would 
remove the wrongs that were done to the poor who 
inhabited the dark streets and ramshackle tenements 
of the East Side, he wrote "How the Other Half 
Lives." 

Roosevelt, as President of the Police Board, and as 
member of the Health Board, felt that Jacob Riis had 
written a personal message to him, and he enlisted in 
the work. 

"I thought the storm center was in New York," 
Roosevelt said when he accepted the office of Police 
Commissioner, "and so I came here. It is a great 
piece of practical work. I like to take hold of work 
that has been done by a Tammany leader and do it as 
well, only by approaching it from the opposite direc- 



Trail Leads West — East Again 101 

tion. The thing that attracted me to it was that it was 
to be done in the hurly-burly, for I don't like cloister 
life." 

New York City was prey to the "system." Bribery, 
blackmail, gambling, every form of law-breaking, 
thrived. This net of evil was spun' in Tammany Hall, 
which then earned itself a notoriety from which it has 
never been able to free itself. This net spread out 
over saloons, gambling houses, policy-shops, and other 
evil places. 

Evil-doers paid political leaders for "protection"; the 
sum collected from various sources of evil amounted 
to millions yearly. These same political bosses con- 
trolled the appointment of police officers and patrol- 
men — indeed the policeman who could pay $200 for the 
next higher post, was sure of obtaining it, no matter 
how unfit he was. A police lieutenant who could 
raise $10,000 to pay to the politicians could thus gain 
a captaincy. Securing place and promotion by these 
means, some of the police lost their sense of honor 
and became the tools of the bosses in their blackmail- 
ing. The honest policeman seemed to have no chance. 
Many of them stayed honest but their lot was a hard 
one. To give encouragement to such men, Roosevelt 
took pleasure in discovering and promoting honest, effi- 
cient and courageous officers. 

Policeman A, while patrolling a lonely part of his 
beat, came upon three young highwaymen who were 
robbing a pedler. The officer darted to the rescue, us- 
ing his night-stick to subdue the thugs. One of them 
attacked him with a bludgeon and broke his left hand. 
Despite the pain, the policeman plied his night-stick 
with such vim that he knocked down and captured two 



102 Jungle Roads 

of the thieves and brought them both to the station 
house. He then went to the hospital; had his broken 
hand set, and went back to duty, without losing an 
hour. He never mentioned his courageous deed, and 
it was only by accident that the details came to the at- 
tention of the police commissioners. They promoted 
him to a roundsman. 

Officer B was asleep in his home when a fire broke 
out a few doors away. He ran across roofs, and 
found that four women and a baby were in an apart- 
ment on the fourth floor, cut off from the doors and 
windows by flames. He descended to a fourth-story 
window of the house next door, crossed to the burn- 
ing house by gaining foothold on a three-inch coping, 
and by holding on to the framing of the windows, and 
finally reached the women and the child. Taking them 
one by one, he bore them back the same way he had 
come, while the firemen, who had just arrived, held a 
net beneath them. All were saved, and then, as an 
officer of the law, he arrested the two men whose 
carelessness had caused the fire. He was promoted. 

Officer C was suddenly summoned by Roosevelt to 
appear before him. This policeman had grown gray in 
the service. He had no political backing. In the 
twenty-three years of his service he had gained no 
promotion beyond that of roundsman, yet Roosevelt 
had found out that in his career as a policeman he had 
saved twenty-nine lives. Roosevelt had him made a 
sergeant and in honor of the promotion the veteran 
went out and rescued a man from drowning, leaping 
out into the dark, chill waters of the river to do 
this act. 

The men whose profits were hurt when Roosevelt 



Trail Leads West— East Again 103 

enforced the law threatened to kill him. Threats of 
assassination were in every mail. One day a bomb was 
sent to him, wound up to explode at a certain time, 
but a policeman discovered it and saved the Commis- 
sioner. He said to Dr. F. C. Iglehart, the Methodist 
clergyman who was one of his strongest supporters: 

"But I am not afraid of one of them singly or all 
of them together. There are gunmen in this city that 
would kill me and kill you for $100, and there are many 
that would put up the money, but bad men are mis- 
erable cowards. I am not afraid of one of them, and 
I will go down on the East Side as often as I please 
and as late at night as I care to, and I will be hunting 
them while they are hunting me, and I tell you, my 
friend, if I succeed in this task, my life and your life 
and the lives of our citizens will be far more secure 
and New York will be a safer and better city." He 
continued, "Doctor, life is a tragedy; there is a risk at 
every step of the way, and duty too. I shall do duty 
and leave the risk to God. It is only the weakling 
and the coward that halts at danger; it is the true 
man who scorns it and does what is right. These 
threats are only a challenge to greater courage and 
a more strenuous fight." 

After several months, there came a summing up of 
the situation. Sunday brawls, and arrests for crimes 
due to drunkenness had been done away with; savings 
banks reported increased deposits; mothers and children 
gave thanks for Sabbath days unmarred by the drunken 
moods of their husbands and fathers. 

Certain newspapers and political leaders tried to 
suppress him by conspiring to abolish his office. This 



104 Jungle Roads 

scheme was discovered by the moral elements of the 
city and opposed so strongly that it was dropped. 

It was such things that made Roosevelt's task a 
heartbreaking one, and that at last led him to resign 
his position for the large task that loomed ahead of 
him in the Navy Department. 

To Dr. Iglehart he said: 

"President McKinley has appointed me Assistant 
Secretary of the Navy. * * * It looks like the 
Lord is on my side, to give me an honorable way out 
of this beastly job, thankless and perplexing to the 
highest degree. And yet I am not sorry I tackled it 
and gave two years of my life to it. I have gotten 
good discipline for anything else that may follow in 
life." 



A WAR ROAD 



XIV. Preparing Our Navy for War 

THE United States Navy was getting ready for war. 
Neither the Secretary of the Navy or his vig- 
orous young Assistant Secretary, Roosevelt, would talk 
about it in public; but there was proof on every hand 
that the battle fleets of the United States were being 
made ready for a conflict. 

"Who is back of this?" the people asked. "Theodore 
Roosevelt," said men who knew. He was getting in- 
formation about merchant vessels that could be used 
as an auxiliary navy. He was buying coal and storing 
it at basic points. He was purchasing old vessels and 
refitting them as colliers. He was recruiting stalwart, 
fearless young men and spending fortunes in teaching 
them how to handle big guns. It had come to be the 
talk of Congress — the amount he had spent for ammu- 
nition. Not satisfied with the first large sum granted 
him, he had asked for a second one, and when he had 
been questioned as to where the first money had gone, 
he had boldly replied: 

"Every cent of it has been spent for powder and 
shot." 

"What will you do with the additional amount?" a 
Congressman asked. 

"It will be spent within the next 30 days for prac- 
tice shooting!" 

105 



io6 Jungle Roads 

"A rash, head-strong, impulsive man!" said pacifists. 
A far-sighted, well-balanced man the country found 
him when war with Spain became a fact. 

Amid the rush of war preparation, Roosevelt found 
time to remember and record amusing occurrences: 

"One day in the Spring of 1898," he wrote, "when 
it fell to my lot to get the navy ready for war, I and 
my naval aide, Lieutenant Sharpe, went out to buy aux- 
iliary cruisers. On that particular day we had spent 
about $7,000,000. It began to rain. 'Sharpe/ I said, 
'I have only four cents in my pocket. Lend me a 
cent or five cents, will you, so that I can ride home?' 

"Sharpe answered, 'I haven't a single cent,' and I 
answered him, 'Never mind, Sharpe, that's why we will 
beat the Spaniards! It isn't every country where two 
public servants could spend $7,000,000 and not have a 
cent in their pockets after they are through." 

On Sunday morning in March, 1898, Roosevelt was 
discussing with Francis S. Leupp the report that Ce- 
vera's squadron was about to sail for Cuba. 

" 'If I could do what I pleased,' he exclaimed, 'I 
would send Spain notice today that we should consider 
her dispatch of that squadron a hostile act. Then, if 
she didn't heed the warning, she would have to take the 
consequences/ 

" 'You are sure,' Leupp asked, 'that it is with un- 
friendly intent that she is sending the squadron?' 

"'What else can it be? The Cubans have no navy; 
therefore the squadrons cannot be coming to fight the 
insurgents. The only naval power interested in Cuban 
affairs is the United States. Spain is simply fore- 
stalling the "brush" which she knows, as we do, is 
coming sooner or later.' 



A War Road 107 

" 'And if she refused to withdraw the orders to Cer- 
vera' — 

" 'I should send out a squadron to meet his on the 
high seas and smash it ! Then I would force the fight- 
ing from that day to the end of the war,' " Roosevelt 
replied. 

Major-General Leonard Wood, writing in the Metro- 
politan Magazine of Roosevelt in these days, gives this 
picture of the Assistant Secretary, fighting to over- 
come the backwardness of his timid chief : 

"Secretary Long, much exhausted by long, hard ser- 
vice and anxiety, decided to take a short leave. The 
Colonel and I always took an afternoon run as soon as 
he could get out of his office and I could finish my 
work. On this particular day, he came up to my house 
on R Street, panting hard. He had been running all 
the way up Connecticut Avenue. As soon as I came 
out on the steps he said, 'Leonard, I have done some 
real work this afternoon. Mr. Long went off to take a 
rest, a much-needed rest.' — And with great emphasis — 
'I was Secretary of the Navy this afternoon for some 
three or four hours, and the responsibility for action 
was mine. I have mobilized everything at Mare 
Island, at League Island; I have bought thousands of 
tons of coal in the Far East for the fleet; I have di- 
rected a certain concentration of ships now in the Far 
Eastern waters under Dewey.' Then he stopped a 
minute to catch his breath; he said, 'You know, I think 
Mr. Long will be back in the morning very early, but 
I have done what I could to get the Navy ready.' 

"Next day, I asked, 'Did Secretary Long come back?' 
'Yes,' he said, 'he was in the office earlier than he had 
ever been before, and it is a question now whether I 



io8 Jungle Roads 

am sustained or he. I think the President is going 
to sustain me.' And he did. The young Assistant Sec- 
retary of the Navy, filled with the conviction that war 
was upon Us, and realizing the importance of being 
ready; unafraid of responsibility, had, in his short 
period of full authority, done what he deemed best. 
Subsequent events proved that his action was a wise 
and far-seeing one. One of far-reaching effect in se- 
curing sea control in the Far East and victory in the 
Philippines." 

General Wood thus testifies to the cordial relations 
existing between McKinley and Roosevelt : 

"President McKinley, one of the best and most lov- 
able of men, whose real worth and character were too 
little understood by many, was thoroughly familiar 
with the views of his Assistant Secretary of the Navy 
and my own and he understood and appreciated them. 
When I came in in the morning, he would laughingly 
ask, 'Well, have you and Theodore declared war yet?' 
and I sometimes replied, 'No, Mr. President, we have 
not, but we think you should take steps in that direc- 
tion, sir.' One night, after we had been talking for 
some time about the probability of war, the President 
said with great seriousness, 'I shall never sanction war 
until all efforts to obtain our ends by other means have 
failed, and only when I am sure that God and man 
approve. I have been through one great war. I have 
seen the dead scattered over many battlefields — I have 
seen the suffering and I do not want to see another 
unless the cause of right and humanity make it neces- 
sary. I pray God we may escape it!' And hesitating 
a moment, he continued, 'But the intolerable situation in 
Cuba must be terminated, even if it has to be done 



A War Road 109 

through war.' The President at that time was bearing 
bravely the heavy burden of serious illness in his fam- 
ily, illness which taxed him to the uttermost, and strug- 
gling against a peace-at-any-price group; but rapidly 
reaching the conclusion that war was inevitable." 

Secretary Long wrote generously of Roosevelt when 
the latter resigned to go to the front: 

"He was heart and soul in his work. His typewrit- 
ers had no rest. He, like most of us, lacks the rare 
knack of brevity. He was especially stimulating to the 
young officers who gathered about him and made his 
office as busy as a hive. He was especially helpful in 
the purchasing of ships and in every line where he 
could push on the work of preparation for war. Al- 
most as soon, however, as it was declared, he resigned 
the assistant-secretaryship of the navy to accept the 
lieutenant-colonelcy of the Rough Rider regiment in 
the army. * * * He had the dash of Henry of 
Navarre without any of his vices. His room in the 
Navy Department after his decision to enter the army, 
which preceded for some time his resignation as As- 
sistant Secretary, was an interesting scene. It bubbled 
over with enthusiasm, and was filled with bright young 
fellows from all over the country, college graduates 
and old associates from the Western ranches, all eager 
to serve with Roosevelt. The Rough Rider uniform 
was in evidence; it climbed the steps of the Navy De- 
partment; it filled the corridors; guns, uniforms, all 
sorts of military traps, and piles of papers littered the 
Assistant Secretary's room, but it was all the very in- 
spiration of young manhood." 

President McKinley, foreseeing that war with Spain 
over Cuba was almost sure to come, now began to 



no Jungle Roads 

plan that there would be no alliance of other European 
powers with Spain. To accomplish this he sent John 
Hay, the distinguished American diplomat, to London. 

Lord Salisbury was then the Premier of Great Brit- 
ain, and was a strong friend to America. Other influ- 
ential British statesmen were also well disposed to- 
wards this country. 

Russia, seeing that the w r ar was approaching, made 
proposals to England that Spain should be persuaded 
to sell or exchange Cuba. By this plan England was 
to become the possessor of the island, and was to add 
it to her other West Indian territory. If the United 
States objected, it was to be hinted that both England 
and Russia favored the plan, and would go to the 
length of war to carry it through. Germany was to be 
persuaded to agree to this plan and France, being then 
allied with Russia, could not oppose it. 

Lord Salisbury refused to involve his country in the 
scheme. He stated that the Cuban situation was a 
matter that concerned only Spain and the United 
States; that Britain would be neutral if they fought, 
and would expect other European nations to remain 
neutral. 

Spain appealed to her friend, Austria, and Austria 
in turn asked her allies, Germany and Italy, to take 
sides with Spain against the United States, but the 
German Emperor was cautious and held aloof, while 
Italy, which was on good terms with England, could 
not be persuaded to take part against her. France, 
when appealed to, also decided to stay neutral. 

Thus Mr. Hay was enabled to cable to President 
McKinley that if Spain did not yield to the just demands 



A War Road in 

of the United States she would have no aid from other 
European powers. 

The scene shifted to Washington, where the Spanish 
Ambassador sought to persuade the ministers who rep- 
resented the other European countries to prevent the 
United States taking action against Spain. Here, too, 
Britain, acting through Sir Julian Pauncefote, refused 
to take sides against the United States and thus 
blocked Spain's efforts. 

Later, at Manila, Captain Chichester, commanding 
the British warsliip "Powerful," thwarted Admiral 
Diederichs, the German commander, when he attempted 
to interfere with Admiral Dewey's operations. 

When Spain was defeated and asked for peace, Great 
Britain again stood back of the United States in the 
dispute concerning the possession of the Philippine 
Islands. Spain wanted a European power to buy the 
Philippines from her in order that the United States 
might not control them. Germany, desiring to have 
a foothold in the East, was anxious to secure the 
Philippines. Great Britain, however, announced that 
as long as the United States decided to hold the islands, 
no other countries should interfere. 

These things show that in a period when almost the 
entire world was hostile to us, Great Britain remained 
our friend. 



H2 Jungle Roads 



XV. Giving Dewey and Sims Their Chance 

TXT" HEN Admiral Dewey captured the Spanish fleet 
* » in Manila harbor at the beginning of our hos- 
tilities with Spain, few Americans knew of the part 
Roosevelt had played in this great naval drama. 

"I knew," Roosevelt said, "that in the event of war 
Dewey could be slipped like a wolf-hound from a leash ; 
I was sure that if he was given half a chance he would 
strike instantly and with telling effect; and I made up 
my mind that all I could do to give him that half- 
chance should be done. I was in the closest touch 
with Senator Lodge throughout this period, and either 
consulted him about or notified him of all the moves 
I was taking. By the end of February I felt it was 
vital to send Dewey (as well as each of our other 
commanders who were not in home waters) instructions 
that would enable him to be in readiness for immediate 
action." 

The naval board ordered the battleship Olympia sent 
home. Roosevelt had the order revoked, and sent in- 
stead this telegram: 

"Dewey, Hong Kong: 

"Order the squadron, except the Monocacy, to Hong Kong. 
Keep full of coal. In the event of declaration of war Spain, 
your duty will be to see that the Spanish squadron does not leave 
the Asiatic coast, and then offensive operations in Philippine 
Islands. Keep Olympia until further orders. Roosevelt." 

Later, when war had been declared, he sent a still 
more thrilling message to the tense Commodore: 

"Capture or destroy!" 



A War Road 113 

The nation knows how gallantly Dewey obeyed 
orders. 

And now comes into our narrative a certain naval 
lieutenant named Sims. 

As a youth Sims, when the appointment to the Naval 
Academy for his district had gone begging, took the 
entrance examination and failed. 

Next year, the position being still open, he tried 
again. He barely passed; to use his own words, he 
"just scraped in." He graduated in 1880 — in the same 
year Roosevelt graduated from Harvard. For fifteen 
years, there being little activity in our then insignificant 
navy, he led an uneventful life. At the time of the 
Spanish War he was forty-'three, and still a lieutenant. 
He was then in charge of secret service work in Spain, 
Russia and Italy and his duty was to keep our naval 
officials informed as to the conditions of other squad- 
rons. Two years prior to this time he had begun to 
send to the Navy Department from his post at the 
China station reports that criticised both the boats of 
our navy and the way in which they were being 
handled. So embarrassing were his letters that the 
naval bureaucrats at Washington destroyed them. 

In 1895 Captain Perry Scott of the British Navy 
had made the discovery of continuous aim, by which a 
British gunner was enabled, at a distance of 1600 
yards, to make eight hits out of eight shots — a mar- 
velous record. 

Lieutenant Sims looked into this development in 
shooting and reported to Roosevelt, then Assistant Sec- 
retary, that American gunnery compared badly with 
that of the British Navy. With the exception of 
Wainwright, the other officials in the Navy Department 



H4 Jungle Roads 

advised Roosevelt that Sims was over-fond of sending 
in alarming reports, and Roosevelt admits that he partly 
agreed with this view. The Spanish-American war 
was then looming up. There was no time for new 
methods. The matter was suspended. 

Sims, however, had made an impression upon Roose- 
velt by his earnest reports and when the war ended 
and the latter was suddenly elevated to the Presidency, 
he again took up the matter of marksmanship. Sims 
was given charge of the work of training our gunners 
and the President testified that in the course of six 
years, he made our Navy's fighting efficiency three 
times as effective. 

In November, 1906, Roosevelt went for a cruise on 
the battleship Louisiana. In a letter to Theodore, Jr., 
he expressed his pride at the great warship with its per- 
fect equipment and its splendid personnel. He con- 
trasted its clean and healthful arrangements; the excel- 
lent food and the other modern features of life in the 
United States Navy, with the wretched conditions which 
prevailed in the time of the seafaring hero of Smollett's 
novel, and expressed his belief that the officers and men 
of today are better fighters than the seamen who served 
under Nelson or Drake. 

On this trip Roosevelt attended a "garrison meeting" 
of enlisted men, in the torpedo-room of the ship. He 
was introduced as "comrade and shipmate Theodore 
Roosevelt. President of the United States." 



A War Road 115 



XVI. "David and Jonathan" Become Leaders of 
the "Rough Riders" 

"One crowded hour of glorious life 
Is worth an age without a name." 

THERE is one man who can tell us better than anyone 
else what kind of a man Roosevelt was at the 
time of the outbreak of the Spanish- American War. 
That man is Major-General Leonard Wood— his close 
comrade. 

General Wood, in the Metropolitan Magazine, gives 
us this vivid picture of the Colonel in the days of the 
Spanish War: 

"In 1897 he came to Washington as Assistant Sec- 
retary of the Navy. He was at the height of his ener- 
getic manhood, thirty-eight or thirty-nine years of age, 
physically hard as nails, — a fighter who was beginning 
to worry the faint-hearted by his demands for vigor in 
national and international affairs, — a keen-visioned and 
patriotic American who saw storm clouds ahead and 
realized the need of making ready in advance. In me 
he found a keen sympathizer, for I had seen enough 
of Washington to feel that we were rather drifting with 
the tide in all which pertained to preparedness for pos- 
sible trouble. 

"From the very beginning of our acquaintance we 
were thrown much in each other's company. We were 
both fond of exercise in the open, and did a great deal 
of tramping and climbing up and down the banks and 
cliffs of the Potomac, where it was rough enough to give 



n6 Jungle Roads 

us a bit of hard work, and took long tramps and runs in 
such rough country as we could find about Washington. 

"New national problems were looming up. Already 
the country was becoming stirred to indignant protest 
by reports of atrocities in Cuba, and the heroic but des- 
perate struggle of the Cubans for independence was 
making strong appeals to American sympathy. 

"Many Americans who had espoused the cause of 
Cuba were already serving in the Cuban ranks, and 
there was more and more talk of war with Spain. 
Each day's events were bringing it nearer and nearer. 

"Roosevelt was outspoken in his views as to our 
duty toward Cuba. The suffering of the Cubans, the 
conditions of starvation and pestilence which sur- 
rounded them, moved his sympathies. Our delay 
aroused his indignant protest. He saw the 'blood of 
the Cubans on the steps of the White House' if we did 
not intervene. 

"Finally, war did come. Every day he had been 
growing more and more impatient to go. On the other 
hand, I felt very strongly that he could render the 
best service by remaining in the Navy Department. It 
seemed to me that, as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, 
he was really a great driving force in that Department. 
He felt, however, that he had done pretty much all 
that he could do in the Navy; he realized the unpre- 
paredness of the Spanish Navy, and felt sure that our 
Navy would be able to handle the situation afloat, and 
that his place was really in the fighting line, and one 
day he announced definitely that he had decided to go. 
'I cannot remain here in Washington. I have been 
telling people to go ; I have been urging war, and I am 
going to take an active part in it myself.' 



A War Road 117 

"As an officer he was thoroughly subordinate and ab- 
solutely loyal. Some one said to me, 'Well, you are 
going to have trouble with Theodore as a subordinate.' 
There was absolutely nothing of the sort. He was a 
most subordinate and efficient officer. He knew per- 
fectly the line between subordination and servility. 
There never was any difficulty. He would always give 
his opinion very frankly and then carry out orders to 
the letter, regardless as to whether or not his views 
were accepted." 

In his book "The Rough Riders," Roosevelt gives 
this account of the selection of Wood and himself for 
the command of the famous regiment: 

"Wood hoped he might get a commission in his na- 
tive State of Massachusetts; but in Massachusetts, as 
in every other State, it proved there were ten men who 
wanted to go to the war for every chance to go. Then we 
thought we might get positions as field-officers under 
an old friend of mine, Colonel — now General — Francis 
V. Greene, of New York, the Colonel of the Seventy- 
first; but again there were no vacancies. 

"Our doubts were resolved when Congress author- 
ized the raising of these cavalry regiments from among 
the wild riders and riflemen of the Rockies and the 
Great Plains. During Wood's service in the South- 
west he had commanded not only regulars and Indian 
scouts, but also white frontiersmen. In the North- 
west I had spent much of my time, for many years, 
either on my ranch or in long hunting trips, and had 
lived and worked for months together with the cow- 
boy and the mountain hunter, faring in every way pre- 
cisely as they did. 

"Secretary Alger offered me the command of one of 



n8 Jungle Roads 

these regiments. If I had taken it, being entirely inex- 
perienced in military work, I should not have known 
how to get it equipped most rapidly, for I should have 
spent valuable weeks in learning its needs, with the re- 
sult that I should have missed the Santiago campaign, 
and might not even have had the consolation prize of 
going to Porto Rico. Fortunately, I was wise enough 
to tell the Secretary that while I believed I could learn 
to command the regiment in a month, yet it was just 
this very month which I could not afford to spare, 
and that therefore I would be quite content to go as 
Lieutenant-Colonel, if he would make Wood Colonel. 

"This was entirely satisfactory to both the President 
and Secretary, and, accordingly Wood and I were 
speedily commissioned as Colonel and Lieutenant- 
Colonel of the First United States Volunteer Cavalry. 
This was the official title of the regiment, but for some 
reason or other the public promptly christened us the 
'Rough Riders.' At first we fought against the use 
of the term, but to no purpose, and when finally the 
Generals of Division and Brigade began to write in 
formal communications about our regiment as the 
'Rough Riders,' we adopted the term ourselves." 

Orders at last came to move from San Antonio to 
Tampa, the point of embarkment for Cuba, but no 
trains were provided. Roosevelt solved this problem by 
taking possession of a string of empty coal cars. The 
engineer, in response to his appeal, started to Tampa, 
and the officers and men reached that port covered 
with coal dust, but jubilant at beholding their trans- 
ports waiting. 

There were thirty transports. Each carried fifteen 
thousand men. They were convoyed by battle ships and 



A War Road 119 

torpedo boats. Just as our American boys, crowded 
together, sailed to Europe to do their part in the world 
war, so these men sailed to free Cuba. On June 22d, 
the fleet came to anchor a few miles from Santiago. 

In letters from the camp at Santiago Roosevelt wrote 
to Ethel of funny little lizards that scurried about the 
dusty roads and then stood still with their heads up; 
of beautiful red cardinal cuckoo birds and tanagers; 
of ground doves and of gorgeous flowers; of the dust 
and mosquitoes among which he made his bed; and 
of the terrific tropical storm that blew down his tent 
and hammock, turned the dust to mud, and left him 
sprawled in it! 



120 Jungle Roads 



XVII. Through Cuban Jungles 

"Never they wait nor waver, but on they climb and on, 
With 'Up with the flag of the Stripes and Stars, and down with 

the flag of the Don!' 
What should they bear through the shot-rent air but rout to the 

ranks of Spain, 
For the blood that throbs in their hearts is the blood of the 

boys of Anthony Wayne! 
See, they have taken the trenches! Where are the foement 

Gone ! 
Aiid now 'Old Glory' waves in the breeze from the heights of 

San Juan! 
And so, while the dead are laureled, the brave of the elder years, 
A song, we say, for the men of to-day who have proved them- 
selves their peers!" 

— Clinton Scollakd. 

THE Rough Riders, in their eagerness to get into 
the thick of the fight, had boarded the trans- 
ports out of turn, and when the ships arrived off Dai- 
quiri, near Santiago, they disembarked out of turn — for 
the same good reason. They marched from Diaquiri 
to Siboney, a nearby town, through a drenching rain, 
and when they arrived dried their clothes at a camp- 
fire, ate the food they had carried in their pockets, and 
asked: "Where do we go next?" 

Roosevelt's regiment was under Brigadier-General 
Sam Young. General Young, who had risen from the 
ranks, was an old friend of the Colonel's and promised 
him before leaving Washington that he would place him 
where he would be able to engage in actual fighting. 
He proved to be as good as his word. He now sent 



A War Road 121 

word to the Rough Riders that he had received per- 
mission to move at dawn and strike the advance posi- 
tions of the Spanish. He ordered Wood to move with 
his men along a hill trail, while he, with the First and 
Tenth Regulars, marched along the valley trail. 

Wood obeyed with eagerness, and early the next 
morning the Rough Riders found themselves in con- 
flict with the Spaniards just about the time General 
Young's troops began to fight them on the valley 
track. 

Wood ordered Roosevelt to command the Rough 
Rider's right wing. The country was mountainous and 
covered with thick jungle and it was hard to locate the 
battle line. 

Richard Harding Davis, the famous fiction writer and 
war correspondent, accompanied Roosevelt. Davis 
first pointed out to Roosevelt the exact location of the 
Spaniards : 

"There they are, Colonel !" he cried, "I see their heads 
near that glade!" 

Roosevelt looked where Davis pointed, saw the 
enemy, and directed his men to fire at them. 

Officers and men advanced chatting and laughing un- 
mindful that they were in the enemy's country. Then 
Wood stopped the head of the column, conferred with 
Capron, who had been scouting, and then said to 
Roosevelt : 

"Pass the word to keep silence in the ranks." 

The outposts of the enemy had been sighted. Each 
trooper, at the word of command, plunged forward 
through the thicket. They came into an open space, 
dropped to their knees, and began to return the Span- 
iards' fire. 



122 Jungle Roads 

It was a trying situation for the men. None of them 
were familiar with the Krag-Jorgensen carbines that 
had been furnished them just before sailing. Most of 
them had never been under fire. They had only slept 
three hours the night before and now they were in 
action under a sun that beat down on them terrific 
heat. The ground was also strange to them. They saw 
their comrades shot and yet found no trace of the 
enemy's hiding-places. 

They went forward, however, like true Americans, 
cleaning out a bush or thicket in much the same way 
our doughboys cleaned out machine-gun nests in the 
Argonne forest. After advancing a mile and a half 
in this way, they came to Guasimas, a hilly place that 
was the key to the Spanish positions. Roosevelt gave 
the order to charge. The stronghold was taken under 
a hot fire in short order, the enemy withdrawing toward 
Santiago. The Rough Riders in this first skirmish had 
eight men killed and thirty-four wounded. They had 
driven out of the Spanish fortifications over twelve 
hundred men. After the battle Roosevelt heard that 
General Wood had been slain, and at once took com- 
mand of the Regiment. As He was moving his men 
towards the main body, however, he was overjoyed to 
see Wood coming towards him, bearing tidings that the 
victory had extended all along the line. 

THE SAN JUAN BATTLE 

The Rough Riders had been handicapped in the 
Guasimas fight because they could not see their foe. In 
the San Juan battle, however, which followed a week 
afterward the Spaniards were in sight and the Colonel, 



A War Road 123 

highly elated at being in command of his own regiment, 
the men of which he said were of "Dragon's blood," 
knew exactly what orders to give. 

Early on the morning when the San Juan battle 
opened, the Colonel marched his men along a muddy 
road that led through a thick jungle to Cuba. A bullet 
from the shrapnel fired by the Spaniards struck Roose- 
velt's wrist and raised an enormous bump. The Rough 
Riders, along with other regiments belonging to Gen- 
eral Wheeler's left wing, came at last within range of 
the San Juan hills, upon which the Spaniards had dug 
intrenchments. They were following the three regi- 
ments of the first Brigade. These regiments came to a 
little river that lay at the foot of these hills. Their 
orders were to cross this stream and connect with 
the forces of General Lawton. They forded it in safety 
and defiled along its opposite bank. 

When, however, the Rough Riders began to cross, the 
Spaniards opened fire. Some of the Rough Riders fell, 
and Roosevelt halted his men and sent messengers to 
the rear to obtain from headquarters permission to at- 
tack the foe upon the hills in front. General Sumner 
at last sent word to advance. The soldier who brought 
the message told Roosevelt that the orders were that the 
Rough Riders should support the regulars in the as- 
sault on the hills, and that the Colonel should choose 
as his objective a hill upon which stood a recFtiled 
ranch-house. This place, because of a huge kettle that 
was later found on it, was called by the Americans 
"Kettle Hill." 

Roosevelt remained on horseback, although this made 
him a shining mark for the bullets of the enemy. He did 
this, not out of a bravado spirit, but because, as his 



124 Jungle Roads 

men were lying down, he found it Hard to give orders to 
them on foot. Up and down the lines he rode, encour- 
aging them much in the same manner as our American 
officers did in the war with Germany, when they led 
their men "over the top." 

He saw a "slacker" creep under a bush. 

"Are you afraid to stand up while I am on horse- 
back?" he demanded. 

Just then a bullet fired by a Spanish sharp-shooter to 
slay the Colonel struck and killed the coward. 

Roosevelt at last rode past his own regiment and up 
to the head of the regular soldiers of the first brigade, 
behind which the Rough Riders were waiting. He 
found no officers, among the regulars, of superior 
rank to him. 

He had reached the decision that his duty was to 
charge the Spaniards at once. He told the captain in 
charge of the rear platoons that his orders were to sup- 
port the regulars, and that he thought the hills should 
be rushed. The captain replied that he had orders to 
keep the men where they were, and that he could not 
charge until new orders came. Roosevelt inquired for 
the colonel, but could not see him. 

"Then I am the ranking officer here," he said, "and 
I give the order to charge." 

The captain refused to obey an order that had not 
come from his own superior officer. 

"Then let my men through, sir!" cried Roosevelt, 
ordering the Rough Riders to advance. 

In others parts of the field Colonels Carrol and 
Hamilton and Captains McBlain and Taylor, of the 
regulars, had at about this moment, given the order to 
advance. The entire line, indeed, was straining to be 



A War Road 125 

released for the attack. Roosevelt, riding on his 
horse, Little Texas, and waving his hat as he rode, led 
his eager men up the hill. The younger officers and 
the enlisted men of the regulars mingled with the 
Rough Riders. The fort was captured with a rush; 
the Spaniards fled before the charge. 

General Sumner now arrived, and Roosevelt re- 
ceived permission to storm a line of intrenchments still 
farther on. These hills were also captured, and then 
word came from the rear for the Rough Riders to halt. 
The Spaniards counter-attacked but were driven back. 
That night, Roosevelt wrapped himself in the blanket 
of a dead Spaniard and slept through the chill tropic 
night in the satisfied peace of a victor. 

On the next day the battle became a siege. Old 
General Wheeler, on his visit to the front, told Roose- 
velt it might be necessary to fall back, as the front 
lines were not adapted to withstand a strong counter- 
attack. 

Roosevelt, with typical boldness, and, with that dis- 
regard of those in high places that made him often 
the despair of the regulars, replied: 

"Well, General, I really don't know whether we would 
obey an order to fall back. We can take that city by 
a rush, and if we have to move out of here at all I 
should be inclined to make the rush in the right direc- 
tion." 

The General, with a reputation for gallantry that 
the Spanish-American campaign made even more bril- 
liant, pondered a moment over this statement; then, 
seeing that the spirit of the man could overcome the 
handicap of poor defenses, nodded assent. 

Two weeks later, Santiago surrendered. Its fall 



126 Jungle Roads 

marked the beginning of the close of the war. Wood, 
now a brigadier-general, was put in command of the 
city. Roosevelt became commander of the brigade in 
his place. 

The next task that fell to the lot of the Colonel was 
to get our soldiers home. Yellow fever and malarial 
fever had attacked them. The War Department was 
disposed to keep the men in the stifling jungles of Cuba 
in spite of the fact that their work was done. Roose- 
velt was about to leave the army and did not share the 
regular officer's natural fear of getting into the bad 
graces of the officials at Washington by making com- 
plaints. He led in a public appeal which resulted in 
an immediate demand by the people that the troops be 
brought back to the United States. 

At Montauk Point, Long Island, New York, the 
Rough Riders landed. Here the admirers of the 
Colonel and the friends of his soldiers thronged to pay 
tribute to the gallant regiment. One day Roosevelt 
was called out of his tent. He found his men formed 
into a hollow square. He was escorted to the center 
and presented with a bronze statute of "The Broncho 
Buster." The men, for a brief time, were popular 
heroes, but their Colonel sagely warned them that these 
tokens of the public's appreciation could not be ex- 
pected to last, and that they must be prepared to go 
back to private life and take up routine work where 
they had left off. 

On the night before the mustering out there was a 
huge celebration. A huge bonfire was kindled. The 
Indian members of the regiment engaged in native 
dances. The cowboys performed tricks they had learned 






A War Road 127 

on the plains. Everybody took part in the fun and 
the Colonel led! 

The reason why Roosevelt was so loved by his men, 
was that he spared neither money, time, or strength 
to administer to their comfort. After the Guasimas 
fight there came a s"hortage of food and Roosevelt, who 
had already spent $5,000 of his own money to provide 
comforts for his men, went out to forage for what in 
our newer war slang was called "chow." He found 
eleven hundred pounds of beans on the beach at Sib- 
oney, and told the officer in charge that he wanted 
them for his men. The officer told him that the beans 
could only be issued for the officer's mess. Thereupon 
Roosevelt made request for eleven hundred pounds of 
beans for his officers. 

"Why Colonel," said the guardian of the stores, 
"your officers can't eat eleven hundred pounds of 
beans !" 

"You don't know what appetites my officers have!" 
retorted Roosevelt. 

This good-natured verbal sparring resulted in a com- 
promise — and the Colonel came back to camp with a 
plentiful supply of beans. 

After the battle of San Juan the Colonel ate hard- 
tack with the rest of his men. Never did he indulge in 
luxuries when they were short of rations. He played 
no favorites. Two of the men he loved the most he 
sent on hazardous missions that resulted in their death; 
yet he himself rode into perils as great. 

"The life," he said, "even of the most useful man, 
of the best citizen, is not to be hoarded if there be need 
to spend it!" 

Yet he was lenient when duty permitted. He gives 



128 Jungle Roads 

in his autobiography this instance of his stretching a 
point to favor one of his Rough Riders: 

"One of my men, an ex-cow-puncher and former 
round-up cook, a very good shot and rider, got into 
trouble on the way down on the transport. He under- 
stood entirely that he had to obey the officers of his 
own regiment, but, like so many volunteers, or at least 
like so many volunteers of my regiment, he did not un- 
derstand that this obligation extended to officers of 
other regiments. One of the regular officers on the 
transport ordered him to do something which he de- 
clined to do. When the officer told him to consider 
himself under arrest, he responded by offering to fight 
him for a trifling consideration. He was brought be- 
fore a court martial which sentenced him to a year's 
imprisonment at hard labor with dishonorable dis- 
charge, and the major-general commanding the division 
approved the sentence. 

"We were on the transport. There was no hard 
labor to do; and the prison consisted of another cow- 
puncher who kept guard over him with his carbine, 
evidently divided in his feelings as to whether he 
would like most to shoot him or to let him go. When we 
landed, somebody told the prisoner that I intended to 
punish him by keeping him with the baggage. He at 
once came to me in great agitation, saying: 'Colonel, 
they say you're going to leave me with the baggage 
when the fight is on. Colonel, if you do that, I will 
never show my face in Arizona again. Colonel, if you 
will let me go to the front, I promise I will obey any 
one you say; any one you say, Colonel,' with the evi- 
dent feeling that, after this concession, I could not, as a 
gentleman, refuse his request. Accordingly I answered : 



A War Road 129 

'Shields, there is no one in this regiment more entitled 
to be shot than you are, and you shall go to the front.' 
His gratitude was great, and he kept repeating, 'I'll 
never forget this, Colonel, never.' Nor did he. When 
we got very hard up, he would now and then manage to 
get hold of some flour and sugar, and would cook a 
doughnut and bring it round to me, and watch me 
with a delighted smile as I ate it. He behaved ex- 
tremely well in both fights, and after the second one 
I had him formally before me and remitted his sen- 
tence^ — something which of course I had not the slight- 
est power to do, although at the time it seemed natural 
and proper to me. 

"When we came to be mustered out, the regular of- 
ficer who was doing the mustering, after all the men 
had been discharged, finally asked me where the pris- 
oner was. I said, 'What prisoner?' He said, 'The 
prisoner, the man who was sentenced to a year's im- 
prisonment with hard labor and dishonorable discharge.' 
I said, 'Oh! I pardoned him'; to which he responded, 
'I beg your pardon; you did what?' This made me 
grasp the fact that I had exceeded authority, and I 
could only answer, 'Well, I did pardon him, anyhow, 
and he has gone with the rest' ; whereupon the muster- 
ing-out officer sank back in his chair and remarked, 'He 
was sentenced by a court martial, and the sentence was 
approved by the major-general commanding the div- 
ision. You were a lieutenant-colonel, and you par- 
doned him. Well, it was nervy, that's all I'll say.' " 



THE WAY TO THE WHITE HOUSE 
XVIII. From San Juan to the Presidency 

THE ROUGH RIDER BECOMES GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK 

"TT7"HEN Colonel Theodore Roosevelt disembarked 

» » at Montauk Point from the transport which 
brought him and his Rough Riders from Santiago," wrote 
Lincoln Steffens, "he was full of the fight that was over. 
A score of his friends who had hurried down eager to 
see him were pressing against the line of bayonets at the 
end of the pier; they were full of something else. One 
by one they seized him, and one by one they whispered 
to him: 

" 'You are the next Governor of New York.' 

" 'Good/ he said, half hearing; but he turned to wave 
at the yellow fellows just tumbling out of the boat. 
'What do you think of the regiment?' he asked. 

" 'Campaign buttons are out with your picture al- 
ready.' 

" 'Yes ? Bully ! Look at them. Aren't they crack- 
a- jacks?' 

" 'But how do you feel ? Do you think you can 
stand the strain of a political campaign?' 

" T feel like a bull moose. I'm ashamed of myself 
to be so sound and well. See, that's K Troop.' 

"And he pointed out men who had distinguished 
themselves. It was impossible to get his attention. 

130 



The Way to the White House 131 

" 'Colonel, Croker said a few weeks ago that the man 
who would be the next governor must have been 
wounded in battle.' 

" 'Did he ? Well, I have a wound. See here on my 
wrist, a piece of shrapnel — see?' There was no trace 
left. 'Well, it was there, anyhow.' 

"He laughed with the crowd, but he again turned to 
the column of khaki, and was soon off with his men 
in Cuba again, when a sober-faced man with a steady, 
quiet voice said: 

" 'Piatt wants you to run for governor, Colonel.' 

"The soldier turned sharply, looked at the man a 
moment, then said: 

" 'I'll see you again about this matter.' " 

The Colonel, finding himself able to make terms with 
Piatt that did not injure his self-respect or hamper his 
freedom of action, accepted the nomination. 

Roosevelt's campaign for election as governor was 
spectacular. He traveled in a special train, accom- 
panied by a group of Rough Riders in their pic- 
turesque uniforms. The crowds cheered him. What 
was more, they voted for him. 

When elected Governor of New York State he built 
his work on the foundation-stones of honesty and fair- 
dealing, considering the good, not of the bosses and 
"interests," but of the people. 

As the end of his first term approached, he desired 
to be reelected as governor. The bosses, because of the 
Governor's independence, were anxious to be rid of him. 
They decided to shelve him into the office of Vice- 
President of the United States. His enthusiastic friends 
in the West welcomed the suggestion. The movement 
gathered headway. He opposed it. He saw no hopes 



132 Jungle Roads 

for advancement in the Vice-Presidency. It was too 
quiet an office for one of his active nature. His views 
were stated in a letter to General Wood shortly after 
the nomination was forced upon him: 

"I feel very much, as Lodge's boy put it, 'as though 
I had taken the veil!' I see my finish as a failure at 
the bar or as a teacher of history, in a second-rate 
country college." 

Wood states that the letter seemed to him one of 
"profound depression." His comrade seemed certain 
that he had ended his' political career in accepting the 
nomination. 

At the National Convention Roosevelt still strug- 
gled in vain against the attempt to get him out of the 
way. He told Senator Piatt: 

"I shall tell the delegates that I shall, if nominated 
for Vice-President, arise in the convention and decline !" 

"But you can not be renominated for Governor!" 
Piatt said, "your successor is in this room !" 

The Senator pointed to Chairman Odell. Roosevelt 
saw that the New York politicians had barred the door 
to him. He accepted the nomination for Vice-Presi- 
dent. 

Now that he was a candidate for the office, he made 
a "whirlwind tour" of the country, relieving President 
McKinley of the cares of travel. The Colonel's train 
chanced to stop at a station where Bryan's train was at 
a standstill. Bitter as their speeches had been, their 
greeting was jovial : 

"Hello, Bill!" called Roosevelt. 

"Hello, Teddy!" returned Bryan. "How is your 
voice after these many speeches?" 



The Way to the White House 133 

"Oh; my voice is as rough as the platform of the 
Democrats," laughed Roosevelt. 

"Mine," retorted Bryan, "is as broken as the prom- 
ises of the Republicans." 

Within eight weeks Roosevelt covered twenty-two 
thousand miles, visited half of the states of the Union, 
and spoke to millions of people. 

Richard Croker, the former Tammany boss, whom 
Roosevelt attacked bitterly in his campaign in 1900, 
said bitterly: 

"That wild man's at it again. I see he was mobbed 
at Elmira. I wouldn't be surprised if he put the job 
up on himself." 

And again Croker remarked : 

"It puzzles me when the heart of the American peo- 
ple is beating for love of him, as the wild man says 
it is, he never shows his face but someone throws a 
brick at him." 

At Victor, Colorado, near Cripple Creek, a band of 
rowdies greeted the Roosevelt special train and heckled 
the Colonel throughout his address. As he left the 
hall there was a movement toward him by some of the 
roughs, but a company of Rough Riders surrounded 
him to protect him from insult. A tough made a rush 
at Colonel Roosevelt and succeeded in hitting him in 
the breast with a stick. Daniel M. Sullivan, the post- 
master at Cripple Creek, knocked the assailant down. 
The mob then tried to drag the khaki-clad Rough Riders 
from their horses, but the procession succeeded in 
gaining the train without injury to any of its members. 

McKinley and Roosevelt were elected by a big ma- 
jority. 

The Colonel entered upon his duties as vice-president 



134 Jungle Roads 

on March 4, 1901, presiding over the Senate during the 
following session. 



IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF MCKINLEY 

Six months later, in Buffalo, an assassin's bullet slew 
President McKinley and Roosevelt become the head of 
the nation. 

Roosevelt, after the shooting, hearing that President 
McKinley's condition was improving, went on a brief 
trip to the Adirondacks, near the foot of Mount 
Tahawas. Two of his children had been in the hos- 
pital, and his family had taken a trip to the mountains 
to enable them to regain their health. He had gone to 
bring them home. The day after the Vice-President 
joined them, he set out for a climb up the side of 
Mount Marcy. 

On Friday morning, while several unemployed guides 
sat around a fire in the Upper Tahawas Clubhouse at 
the foot of Mount Marcy, a messenger from a lower 
settlement drove up in a mud-bespattered wagon. 

"Boys," said David Hunter, the superintendent. 
"There is bad news for the President. Who will 
carry the message to Mr. Roosevelt?" 

The lot fell to a tall, thin, weather-beaten guide 
named Harrison Hall. He crossed the tiny footbridge 
which spans the Hudson at that point and threaded a 
forest to Lake Colton. He learned on the trail that 
Roosevelt was climbing the side of Mount Marcy, which 
clasps, as in a giant's cup, a beautiful body of water 
which rests 4,500 feet above sea level and is the source 
of the Hudson River. At about two o'clock La Casse, 
Roosevelt's guide, looked down and beheld Harrison 



The Way to the White House 135 

Hall waving to them. He clasped in his hand the 
yellow sheet of a telegram and Roosevelt knew that he 
was the messenger of fate. Then began the thirty-five 
mile drive in a light wagon on a steep, dangerous 
trail. 

A correspondent of the New York Herald wrote this 
vivid description of Roosevelt's return from Mount 
Marcy : 

"The full story of that ride will never be written; 
save for a few frightened deer, aroused by the splash- 
ing hoofs and peering wide-eyed at the swaying lan- 
tern through the fog, there was no spectator of the 
journey. The drivers, trained hunters from their 
youth, have learned silence as the first lesson of their 
calling, and questions elicit naught save the barest out- 
line of the trip. 

"Well, I knew, by the feel of the wagon, we were 
off the road once or twice, and I told Mr. Roosevelt 
we might be a hundred feet below the next moment for 
all I could tell, but he just told me to 'Go ahead!'" 
said Driver Kellogg. 

"Yes, the horses stumbled badly once, and I wanted 
to slow up; but he said, 'Keep right on!'" admitted 
Cronin. * * * 

"Still the obstinate hope of a strong willed man, who 
refuses to take no from fate, possessed Mr. Roose- 
velt. 

" 'They say the President is dying,' he told Kellogg, 
'but I have hope yet.' * * * 

"A country dance was just breaking up at a little 
schoolhouse on the way. The plunging team dashed 
past the returning revelers, black and silent, in sharp 
contrast on its sad errand. * * * 



136 Jungle Roads 

"At twenty-one minutes after 5 o'clock Mr. Roosevelt 
leaped out on the station steps at North Creek. Half 
way up he received from a representative of the Herald 
the first notification that President McKinley was dead." 

They reached the station in the gray dawn of a new 
day — a day in which America mourned for a President 
dead, and looked with anxious eyes to where a figure of 
destiny was emerging to take his place. That evening 
Roosevelt at the earnest request of Secretary Root and 
the other members of McKinley's cabinet, took, in the 
house of Ansley Wilcox, at Buffalo, the regular oath 
of office: 

"I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute 
the office of the President of the United States, and 
will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and 
defend the Constitution of the United States." 

He was only forty-two — our youngest President. His 
rise had been amazingly swift. He had a long line of 
good ancestors behind him ; he was wealthy ; yet he was 
simple in his habits and a friend of the plain people. 
The nation welcomed such a man. 

When he took the oath of office he made this simple 
•statement : 

"It shall be my aim to continue, absolutely unbroken, 
the policy of William McKinley for the peace, pros- 
perity and honor of this beloved country." 

He followed this pledge as closely as possible, chang- 
ing McKinley's policy only as the needs of the public 
required. 

He made the McKinley Cabinet his own Cabinet, thus 
securing the aid of such distinguished men as John 
Hay and Elihu Root. When he filled vacancies in the 
Cabinet, he chose men who had occupied other of- 



The Way to the White House 137 

fices under McKinley to fill the empty places. Among 
these was Wm. H. Taft. His rule to use McKinley's 
staff held good even when he selected his own private 
secretary; Mr. Cortelyou had held this place under 
President McKinley and Roosevelt not only retained his 
services but also later promoted him to a Cabinet 
position. 

THE GREAT COAL STRIKE 

The battle between capital and labor was waged fu- 
riously during Roosevelt's first years as President. He 
saw that there was right on each side and tried his ut- 
most to have the two sides settle their difficulties, by 
giving each other the "square deal." If one side tried 
to monopolize his aid, he soon showed it that he was 
the President, not of one clique, but of all parties. He 
said once to Jacob Riis: 

"Whether your children or my children shall be 
happy or unhappy in this country in the year 1950, de- 
pends on whether every man of honor is a firm friend 
to every other man of honor, be he workman or capi- 
talist—This class spirit is the cancer that is eating 
away the life of our republic. I am for neither capital 
or labor, but I am for honesty, against dishonesty, for 
patriotism against selfishness, for right against wrong." 

"The White House door," he told a group of labor 
leaders, "while I am here, shall swing open as easily 
for the labor man as for the capitalist, and no easier!" 

In the fall of 1902 occurred the great Anthracite 
Coal Strike. Trouble had been brewing for a long time 
between the mine-owners and the miners. 

To avert the coal famine Roosevelt now decided if 



138 Jungle Roads 

his plan to settle the strike should fail through the Stub- 
bornness of the mine-owners, to send the United States 
Army to the coal fields to run the mines. On October 
13th, however, the operators agreed to arbitrate. The 
men went back to work at once. They secured in the 
end ten per cent, increase in pay and a nine-hour day. 

Roosevelt, when his first term had expired, sought 
re-election. 

"I do not believe in playing the hypocrite," he said. 
"Any strong man fit to be President would desire a 
nomination and re-election after his first term. Lin- 
coln was President in so great a crisis that perhaps he 
neither could nor did feel any personal interest in his 
own re-election. But at present I should like to be 
elected President, just as John Quincy Adams, or Mc- 
Kinley, or Cleveland or John Adams, or Washington 
himself desired to be elected. It is pleasant to think 
that one's countrymen think well of him. But I shall 
not do anything whatever to secure my nomination save 
to try to carry on the public business in such shape 
that decent citizens will believe I have shown wisdom, 
integrity and courage." 




@ Underwood & Underwood 

ROOSEVELT AMONG THE CANAL DIGGERS 



The Way to the White House 139 



XIX. Important Events of Roosevelt's Presidency 

THE MAN WHO BUILT THE PANAMA CANAL 

IT had been the dream of a century to connect the 
Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean by cutting a 
channel through the narrow Isthmus of Panama. 

Columbus dreamed that he could find a route west- 
ward from Europe to Asia. America stood in his 
path. Balboa and other hardy explorers tried to dis- 
cover a way by which the American continent could be 
crossed by water, but found none. 

Later, men began to dream of cutting a channel to 
the Pacific, so that their ships could go on to the 
Orient. As early as 1550 the King of Spain was urged 
by Antonio Galvao, a sailor, to dig a canal through the 
Isthmus of Panama. 

Admiral Nelson, in 1780, suggested that such a pas- 
sage should be dug across Nicaragua. A traveler named 
Humboldt in 1804 proposed five routes ; the path of the 
canal follows closely one of these suggested paths. 

When gold was discovered in California in 1849, 
and gold-seekers and trade began to drift to the west 
coast, the need for the canal grew greater. 

In 1888 the Frenchman de Lesseps began the canal 
but he became involved in financial troubles and the at- 
tempt was a failure. 

When war with Spain came, and the battleship Ore- 
gon had to travel from the Pacific Coast around Cape 



140 Jungle Roads 

Horn to join our Atlantic squadron, the entire country 
saw how convenient it would be to have a short cut 
between the two oceans by way of the Isthmus. 

When Roosevelt decided to build the canal, he chose 
between two possible locations for it; through Nic- 
aragua, or through Panama, along the line already 
plotted by the French. The latter route was chosen. 

The people of Panama wanted the Canal built. 
Thwarted by the new government of Colombia they 
started a revolution. It occurred on November 3, 
1903. Roosevelt recognized the Republic of Panama, 
and made a new canal treaty with it. The Senate rati- 
fied the treaty. Other nations soon followed the ex- 
ample of the United States in recognizing Panama as 
a separate country. 

The Canal was begun. To Colonel Goethals belongs 
the credit of carrying through the gigantic task swiftly 
and well. He was immensely aided by Doctor (Sur- 
geon-General) Gorgas, who drove out malaria and 
yellow fever and made the Canal Zone as healthful as an 
American ocean resort. 

Former President Wm. H. Taft, in his foreword to 
Dr. Lewis's Life of Roosevelt, pays this tribute to the 
Colonel for his work in building the Canal: 

"If the name of the Panama Canal could be changed, 
it should be called the 'Theodore Roosevelt Canal.' It is 
more due to him than to any other man, and without him 
it may well be doubted whether it would now be begun. 
The hoggish and unjust attitude of Colombia toward 
the enterprise as well as toward Panama, whose people 
favored giving the United States an opportunity to 
build and own it, aroused the deep indignation of 
Roosevelt. He knew there was no equity in the po- 






The Way to the White House 141 

sition of Colombia. He welcomed the possibility of a 
revolution which should separate Panama from Co- 
lombia." 

To take a trip through the Canal is the best way to 
understand what a great work Roosevelt set in motion 
when he started the steam shovels at Panama. If 
the voyage is started on the eastern end, the traveler 
comes first to Gatun. The original town of Gatun is 
now submerged under the waters of the lake that was 
formed by letting in the Chagres River, held in place 
by the great dam at this point. Here have been built 
the largest locks, which are big enough to take the 
biggest ocean liners, and one marvels at the immensity 
of their emergency gates and control houses. The 
Gatun Dam, the lake behind it, the locks and the 
Canal blend into the landscape so that it is hard to 
realize that men had anything to do with creating it. 

In the cement locks the water has a depth of 
thirty-four feet, but elsewhere the water is over eighty 
feet deep — the time it takes to empty a lock is just 
eight minutes. In going through the canal, the ships 
pass through twelve gates. The passage takes about 
ten hours. Canal pilots direct the course of the ships 
through the canal and through the locks the vessels are 
towed by electric locomotives that run along the quays. 
As the journey proceeds, the traveler sees white light- 
houses projecting out of the surrounding jungle, with 
beautiful mountains in the background. At last the 
famous Culebra Cut is reached. To cut the canal here 
was a work of tremendous difficulty. Our engineers 
at this place cut through the highest point of the 
mountain range. There is a soft layer of rock here 
that causes stone to crumble and slide from both 



142 Jungle Roads 

sides into the Canal, so that dredges have often to be 
employed to keep the Canal open. 

In 1906, Roosevelt sailed on the battleship Louisiana 
for Panama. Here he inspected the work of build- 
ing the canal. 

In a letter to Kermit, describing the trip, he grew 
enthusiastic over the ninety-five ton steam shovels 
that were at work in the Culebra Cut and told of see- 
ing them scoop huge masses of rock and gravel and 
dirt and deposit them on trains. In this way, entire 
hills were removed from the track of the canal. The 
white supervisors and the black men who did the rough 
work awakened his admiration and it was with im- 
mense satisfaction that he saw his own great dream 
made real through the efforts of these untiring workers. 



CURBING THE KAISER 
"Walk Softly, But Carry a Big Stick." 

"I want Uncle Sam to be peaceful," wrote Roosevelt ; 
"I want Uncle Sam to show scrupulous regard for the 
rights of others; but I want to see Uncle Sam owe 
his safety to two facts: in the first place, that he will 
do nothing but good to men; and, in the second place, 
that he will submit to wrong from no man." 

These words fitly express the foreign policy followed 
by the President during his term of office. Toward a 
blustering, grasping nation he uplifted "the big stick"; 
with peaceful nations he walked softly. 

What is known in our history as "the Venezuelan" 
affair, took place a little over a year after Roosevelt 
became President. The German Emperor had long 



The Way to the White House 143 

looked on the Western Hemisphere as a field for con- 
quest, by commerce or by arms. When the Spanish- 
American war broke out, he asked England and France 
to join with his fleet in checking our naval operations. 
Mr. Balfour, then in charge of the British War office, 
crushed him with the reply: 

".No, if the British fleet takes any part in the war, 
it will be to put itself between the American fleet and 
those of your coalition." 

Thus the German Emperor was forced to content him- 
self with the threat: 

"If I had had ships enough, I would have taken 
the Americans by the scruff of the neck." 

Here is Roosevelt's own story of what happened, told 
in September, 1917, at a luncheon in Chicago, and 
reported in the New York Times: 

"It was about a year after I took office. Germany 
was striving to extend her dominion. She had in view 
certain chosen positions in South America. She aimed 
to turn South America into a German appendage. 
Venezuela at that time had a dictator named Castro, 
cqmmonly known as the 'Monkey of the Andes.' 

"At that time England was backing Germany, and, 
while I had both against me, I paid little attention to 
England. It was the last flicker of England's antag- 
onism to the United States. 

"I called the attention of the Ambassador (von Hol- 
leben) to the fact that Germany had a squadron of 
warships near Venezuela, threatening the mouth of 
the proposed isthmian canal ! I demanded a statement 
of what Germany meant by temporary possession; say- 
ing that I did not propose to have any ninety-nine year 
leases. 



144 Jungle Roads 

"The Ambassador told me he did not feel that he was 
at liberty to discuss such an important question. That 
conference wound up with the following ultimatum: 

" 'Tell your Government that in ten days it must ar- 
bitrate the matter, or I will send Dewey down there.' 

" 'I can not send such a message, Mr. President. I 
do not think you realize what it means !' the Ambassa- 
dor replied. 

" 'You think it means war ?' I asked. 

" T do not want to say what I think !' was the reply. 

" 'If it means war, you have chosen the one spot 
where you cannot fight us,' I replied, and I showed by 
our maps our commanding position. When he retired 
I sent word to Dewey to be ready to sail on an hour's 
notice. About a week later the Ambassador called on 
me and admitted that he had not dared send the 
message. I then told him that I would order Dewey 
to sail in forty-eight hours. He told me that it would be an 
awful thing for this country. 

" 'Yes, but it will be more awful for your country/ 
I replied. Inside of thirty-six hours he came back 
smiling and said he had received instructions from the 
German Government that they would arbitrate." 

The President acted just as vigorously in the famous 
case of the kidnapped Perdicaris. Raizuli, a Moroccan 
bandit, seized Perdicaris, an American, and held him 
for ransom. He threatened that he would kill the 
prisoner unless the money he asked for was paid. John 
Hay, the Secretary of State, cabled the American consul 
at Tangier: 

"We want Perdicaris alive or Raizuli dead," adding 
that Gummere was "not to commit us about landing 
marines or seizing customhouse." 



The Way to the White House 145 

In his diary, according to William Roscoe Thayer, 
Hay made the following entries: 

"June 23. My telegram to Gummere had an un- 
called for success. It is curious how a concise im- 
propriety hits the public." 

"June 24. Gummere telegraphs that he expects Perdi- 
caris to-night." 

"June 27. Perdicaris wires his thanks." 

In 1903 a massacre of Jews occurred in Kishinef, 
Russia. The Jews of America petitioned the President 
to ask the Czar of Russia to safeguard the lives of the 
Jews of Russia against such outbreaks. The Russian 
government would not discuss the subject. Roosevelt, 
however, had promised that he would bring the appeal 
of his countrymen to the notice of the Czar. 

Would Russia resent such a move? Was war on the 
horizon ? 

No trouble arose. True, the Russian government re- 
fused to receive the memorial, but the American con- 
sul at St. Petersburg visited the Foreign Office with 
a letter from Secretary Hay, which inquired as to 
whether the Russian government would accept the 
document. This letter set forth the full text of the 
memorial. The Russian Foreign Office accepted it. 
Its publication in the press put before the world every 
word of the petition of the American Jews. The ob- 
ject of the latter had been gained. The eyes of the 
world had been drawn to the afflictions of the Hebrews 
of Russia. 

MAKING PEACE BETWEEN JAPAN AND RUSSIA 

When war broke out on February 10th, 1904, between 
Russia and Japan, Roosevelt, the man who had been 



146 Jungle Roads 

declared by his foes to be war-loving himself, was the 
one who without any other aid, made peace between 
them. 

Japan had become alarmed over the way Russia had 
expanded her dominions. The Czar's forces had reached 
the shores of the Yellow Sea and were threatening to 
control China. Japan herself was then in her infancy 
as a world power. Fifty years before, her soldiers 
had been armed with primitive bows and arrows. Now, 
however, she had a new army, which had been trained 
after the European methods of warfare. This army 
she sent to drive back the Czar. 

To the amazement of the world, the giant Russia was 
defeated. Some of her highest officials were grafters; 
her armies were poorly trained and disorganized. On 
the Japanese side a brilliant general, Kuroki, arose. 
He commanded one of the Nippon armies in Man- 
churia, directed the battle which isolated Port Arthur, 
and took part in the battles at Liao-Yang, Chaho and 
Mukden. At the last-named place the concluding bat- 
tle of the war was fought, in Which the Japanese were 
victorious. 

The United States had representatives in Manchuria 
taking notes of the campaign. Among these were Cap- 
tain John J. Pershing and Captain Peyton C. March; 
the former of these in the great world war directed 
our armies in France and the latter was Chief of Staff 
of the armies assembled at home for service abroad. 

Roosevelt, in spite all of the problems that he had 
to deal with at home, watched the war with great con- 
cern. At last he decided to try to end it. On June 8, 
1905, he sent to both powers a letter in which he 
pleaded with them "not only for their own sakes but 



The Way to the White House 147 

in the interest of the whole civilized world to open 
direct negotiations for peace with each other." 

The President had found out beforehand that both 
countries would be willing to make peace; the question 
now to determine was where the peace council should 
meet. At last the United States was decided upon. 

On August 5th, the Russian and Japanese envoys 
first met. The place was Oyster Bay, aboard the 
President's yacht, "The Mayflower." At this rather 
strained meeting, the President proposed this toast, 
which proved to be the first step toward peace: 

"Gentlemen, I propose a toast to which there will 
be no answer and which I ask you to drink in silence, 
standing. I drink to the welfare and prosperity of 
the sovereigns and the people of the two great nations, 
whose representatives have met one another on this 
ship. It is my earnest hope and prayer in the inter- 
est not only of these two great powers, but of all civ- 
ilized mankind, that a just and lasting peace may speed- 
ily be concluded between them." 

The peace conference then convened at Portsmouth, 
N. H. The Russian envoys agreed to most of the 
terms laid down by the Japanese, but refused to pay a 
money indemnity or to surrender territory. Roosevelt 
here used his good offices to bring an agreement. He 
persuaded Japan to withdraw her claim for money. He 
persuaded Russia to cede to Japan half of the Island of 
Saghalien, which had been captured by Japan. Satis- 
fied, the commissioners came together again, and on 
September 5th the peace treaty was signed. 

Roosevelt's services on this occasion in behalf of 
world peace won for him the Nobel Peace Prize, a 
medal, one of the awards set aside by Alfred B. Nobel, 



148 Jungle Roads 

a Scandinavian, to be presented to those whose deeds 
benefited mankind. With the prize went a gift of 
$40,000. Roosevelt was praised by the entire world 
for having brought about peace. The Czar of Russia 
and the Emperor of Japan sent him warm letters of 
thanks. 

Important as this event was, it was yet only one of 
Roosevelt's peace-making acts. He saw that South 
America, with its Spanish population, might be made 
hostile to the United States. He therefore sent Sec- 
retary of State Elihu Root on a tour through South 
America. Mr. Root met the statesmen of the tropics 
with a tact and friendliness that won their hearts and 
did much to allay their suspicions of the country he 
represented. 

Among other acts of good will done by Roosevelt 
was the return by the United States to China, for edu- 
cational purposes, of half of the money China had 
agreed to pay the United States for damages done dur- 
ing the Boxer uprising. 

Our Fleet Circles the Globe 

"Yes, it is good to battle, and good to be strong and free, 
To carry the hearts of a people to the uttermost ends of the sea, 
To see the day steal up the bay where the enemy lies in wait, 
To run your ship to the harbor's lip and sink her across the 

strait : — 
But better the golden evening when the ships round heads for 

home, 
And the long gray miles slip swiftly past in the swirl of a 

seething foam, 
And the people wait at the haven's gate to greet the men who 

win ! 
Thank God for peace! Thank God for peace, when the great 

gray ships come in!" 

— Guy Wetmore Carryl 



The Way to the White House 149 

In the final year of his Presidency, Roosevelt found 
himself confronting a grave situation with Japan — 
one that unless delicately handled might cause war. 

The people along the Pacific Coast, fearing then, as 
they fear now, that their states would be over-run by 
Japanese laborers who could live cheaper and work for 
lower wages than American workmen, demanded that 
the Japanese be excluded from this country. There 
were anti-Japanese riots in several places. The State 
of California passed a rule excluding Japanese chil- 
dren from its public schools. 

Roosevelt met the situation by sending Secretary of 
War Taft to Japan as an "Ambassador of Peace." 
Taft, at a public dinner given to him in Tokio, de- 
clared that talk of war between the two countries was 
"infamous." Japan, to show her desire to avoid 
trouble, sent General Kuroki to the United States to 
return Taft's words of peace. A "gentleman's agree- 
ment" was made between the two governments. Japan 
agreed to restrict the sending of Japanese laborers to 
America, California agreed to withdraw her school order. 

Yet in diplomatic circles throughout the world the 
occurrence had set tongues to wagging; and agitators 
kept the threat of war alive. 

Then Roosevelt, to give Japan a friendly warning, 
and to prove to the world the truth of his conviction 
that all was well between the two nations, sent the 
American fleet on a voyage around the world. Admiral 
Bob Evans indiscreetly described the squadron as be- 
ing fit "for either a frolic or a fight," but Japan rose 
nicely to the occasion by officially inviting it to a frolic 
in her waters. 

The sixteen battleships went through the Strait of 



150 Jungle Roads 

Magellan to San Francisco. From there they sailed 
to New Zealand and Australia, stopping at the Phil- 
ippines, China and Japan, then home through the Suez 
Canal, stopping in the Mediterranean. The most notable 
incident of the cruise was the cordial reception given 
to the fleet by the Japanese. When the fleet returned 
after its sixteen months' voyage, Roosevelt received it in 
Hampton Roads and made a speech highly praising its 
officers and crew. 

When visiting Berlin at the end of his African trip, 
Colonel Roosevelt had an interesting talk with Von 
Tirpitz, who later became infamous through the cruel- 
ties committed by his U-boats during the world war. 
Von Tirpitz was greatly interested in the voyage around 
the world of the American battle-fleet. He said that he 
expected that Japan would attack the fleet on its voy- 
age, and he asked Roosevelt if he had not also expected 
this. The Colonel replied that he had not expected it, 
although there was a chance that it might happen. Von 
Tirpitz told Roosevelt that he thought the voyage of 
the battle-fleet had done more to bring about peace in 
the Orient than any other event. 



The Way to the White House 151 



XX. Our Sportsman-President 

Roosevelt in Wyoming 

(Told by a guide— 1899) 

Do you know Yancey's? When the winding trail 
From Washburn Mountains strikes the old stage road? 
And wagons from Cooke City and the mail 
Unhitch awhile and teamsters shift the load? 

A handy bunch of men are round the stove 
At Yancey's — hunters back from Jackson's hole 

And Ed Hough telling of a mighty drove 
Of elk that he ran down at Tenton Bowl. 

And Yancey he says: "Mr. Woody, there 

Can tell a hunting yarn or two beside, 
He guided Roosevelt when he shot a bear 

And six bull elk with antlers spreading wide." 

'<But Woody is a guide who doesn't brag, 

He puffed his pipe awhile, then gravely said: 
"I knew he'd put the Spaniards in a bag, 

For Mister Roosevelt always picked a head. 

"That man won't clotch around in politics 
And waste his time a-killing little game; 
He studies elk, and men, and knows their tricks, 
And when he picks a head he hits the same." 

Now, down at Yancey's every man's a sport, 
And free to back his knotvledge up with lead; 

And each believes that Roosevelt is the sort 
To run the State, because he "picks a head." 

— Robert Bridges, in "Bramble BralJ 

Copyright by Charles ScrlbDer's Sons. 



152 Jungle Roads 

FOR seven and a half years, Roosevelt toiled in the 
Presidency. He did the work of five ordinary 
men, yet he kept well and vigorous. His good health 
was due to outdoor exercise. His vigorous open-air life 
served not only to keep him "fit" but also spurred his 
associates to sports and exercise which helped them to 
bear up under the hard tasks that came to them in those 
strenuous years. 

He valued men who kept themselves "fit" by mental 
exertion and outdoor exercise. It was these qualities 
in John J. Pershing, for instance, that led the President 
to select him for promotion to a higher rank. 

When Roosevelt was President the splendid record 
of a young army officer, Captain Pershing, was brought 
to his attention. The reports that came to the War De- 
partment from the Philippines showed that Pershing 
was doing remarkable work in subduing unruly Filipinos 
and in keeping his men up to the mark. 

Pershing was in line for a promotion to colonel or 
lieutenant-colonel, but Congress had passed a law that, 
while it was not directed at any one officer, hindered 
promotion of a meritorious captain to one of these 
ranks. However, Roosevelt had the right to appoint an 
officer to the rank of brigadier-general, so he took ad- 
vantage of this loop-hole and raised Pershing to this 
rank, advancing him over many other army officers. 

The promotion aroused much criticism at the time 
but Pershing proved that he deserved it. His 
record later in Mexico and France showed that 
Roosevelt's judgment was right when he chose to raise 
young and active men to positions of power. 

The President devoted at least two hours of every 
day to horse-back riding, wrestling, tennis, walking or 



The Way to the White House 153 

broad sword or single-stick exercise. He rode horse- 
back and jumped hurdles as well as the best of riders. 
One day, however, he fell from his horse and wrenched 
his neck and shoulders. George von L. Meyer, a close 
friend of Roosevelt's, tells us that once when he was 
out for a horseback ride along the Potomac with the 
President, who was also accompanied by his friends 
Elihu Root and Henry Cabot Lodge, Meyer suddenly 
set his horse to jumping certain fences. Roosevelt told 
Meyer that he would join in the hurdling. 

"Lodge," Meyer writes, "said my horse jumped in 
much better form. He was carrying, however, about 
thirty pounds less. After that, without realizing what 
effect it would have on the President, I put my horse 
over the five-foot jump. I had no sooner done it than 
the President went at it. His horse refused, so he 
turned his horse, set his teeth, and went at it again. 
This time his horse cleared it well forward, but dragged 
his hind legs. Lodge was very much put out that the 
President had taken such a risk with his weight . . . 
The President said, T could not let one of my Cabinet 
give me a lead and not follow.' " 

Roosevelt was interested in the Japanese science of 
jiu jitsu, and in a letter to Theodore, Jr., he described 
an encounter between Professor Yamashita and the 
Colonel's friend, Grant. The Japanese was a jiu 
jitsu expert, while Grant was skilled at wrestling. The 
Colonel wrote, however, that it was hard to compare the 
arts orf the two men, since wrestling was merely a sport 
like tennis, while jui jitsu was the science of killing 
or disabling an adversary. He described how Grant put 
Yamashita on his back and how Yamashita a minute 
later got a hold that choked Grant and also an elbow 



154 Jungle Roads 

hold that, if tightened, would have broken Grant's 
arm. The Colonel gave it as his opinion that one of our 
strong American wrestlers, with a little training, would 
be more than a match for a Japanese who practiced 
jiu jitsu. 

Cross-country walking was his favorite exercise. He 
took with him cabinet officers, diplomats, senators, rep- 
resentatives or his own more intimate friends. The 
walk would generally be along the Potomac and would 
be taken after dark, so that the public could not see 
him at sport that might be thought unbecoming in a 
President. 

Major-General Leonard Wood, in his recollections 
published in Metropolitan Magazine, gives this account 
of these walks: 

"Whenever I landed in Washington it always meant 
a hard run through the parks, up and down the banks 
of Rock Creek — always with men, few of whom went 
a second time. Once, I remember, he took out a num- 
ber of men who were aspirants for promotion to the 
grade of brigadier. He looked them over and said, 
'Leonard, I am going to give those gentlemen a trv- 
out. We want active officers/ 

"And try them out he did. We started out on one 
of those rough-and-tumble walks. It was a slippery 
climb along the rocks and banks of Rock Creek after 
the rain. One of our brigadiers (who had already been 
appointed, by the way) turned out with a straw hat, 
patent leather shoes, white waistcoat, projecting pearl but- 
tons, glasses, and carrying a smart looking walking stick. 
When he had gotten half way down Rock Creek this 
gentleman had lost all the buttons on his waistcoat, he 
had broken his glasses; some of the buttons were gone 



The Way to the White House 155 

from the upper part of his trousers. He had been 
across Rock Creek several times; he was a complete 
and total wreck and knew it — so did the Colonel. The 
Colonel hailed a mounted policeman who chanced to be 
on the other side of the stream, called him up and said, 
'Mr. Officer, this is a general in the army/ pointing to 
the exhausted and dejected victim. 'He belongs in the 
city of Washington and wishes to go there; you take 
him down now and put him on the car. Remember that 
he is a general !' " 

Here is the picture Wood gives of Roosevelt and his 
comrades at football: 

"Occasionally we had some work with the football — 
kicking, catching, falling and tackling. Once or twice 
Senator Lodge came out with us. He was very active, 
and knew something of the game. We also beguiled an 
unfortunate German, a member of the Embassy, to 
come out with us occasionally. I say 'unfortunate' be- 
cause he certainly had rather rough handling in a form 
of exercise with which he was entirely unfamiliar. He 
was big, heavy and willing ; but knew absolutely nothing 
of American football methods. The Colonel thought 
the best way to break him in was to let him begin by 
learning to tackle and run with the ball. So the Baron 
was sent full speed down the field with orders to 
get by the Colonel, who invariably attacked him in the 
most aggressive fashion. Then the Colonel would 
take the ball, and when the Baron attempted to tackle 
he would find the Colonel's palm in his face and over 
he would go. On the whole, he had a very unhappy 
time the few afternoons he was with us. The Baron 
would run at full speed; Roosevelt, with his teeth set, 
would invariably dive solidly into his stomach. After 



156 Jungle Roads 



several attempts at this form of exercise, which was 
undertaken more in a sense of courtesy to the Colonel 
than from any love of it, the Baron disappeared. There 
was no more football for him after that. And so it 
went; always something of hard, strenuous work in the 
open air after hours of concentrated work in the 
office." 

As a result of his conversation with young army and 
navy officers who went with him on these walks, Roose- 
velt determined that he would compel the older army 
officers stationed around Washington to keep in good 
physical condition. This he accomplished by issuing 
an order that each officer should show that he could 
walk fifty miles or ride one hundred miles within three 
days. The older officers rebelled against the order and 
used their influence with Congress and the newspapers 
to have the command ridiculed. Roosevelt, however, 
proved that the complaints of these men were absurd 
by himself riding, with two officers, more than a hun- 
dred miles in one day over the frozen roads of Vir- 
ginia. The nation decided that what the President 
could do in one day, the army and navy officers should 
be willing to do in three days, and opposition to the 
order died. 

Cary T. Grayson, the President's physician, was a 
naval officer. When certain generals and colonels pro- 
tested against Roosevelt's order, he sent for Grayson, 
and, according to Ray Stannard Baker, said: 

"Can you ride horseback?" 

"Yes," Grayson said, "I was brought up with horses." 

"Some of the officers object to the test I have put to 
them. They think it too severe. Now I want myself 



The Way to the White House 157 

to do the ninety miles and do it all in one day. And 
I want you to come along." 

The two ment went, and Grayson treasures this record 
of his journey, penned by the President: 

THE WHITE HOUSE 

Washington, January 15, 1909. 
My dear Dr. Grayson: 

On January 13 you accompanied me on a ride from 
the White House, at Washington, to the inn at War- 
renton and back, 98 miles, as we measured it, but, as 
I am now informed, 104 miles. We started at 3.40 in 
the morning and returned at 8.40 in the evening, stop- 
ping for an hour and a quarter at Warrenton and for 
five or ten minutes at other places. We had four relays 
of horses. For most of the time coming in the weather 
was very bad, a sleet storm driving in our faces, and 
the roads were frozen and difficult. On the last stretch, 
which was the hardest of all, your horse was smooth 
shod, which greatly increased the difficulty and risk 
as we made our way against the sleet storm over the 
frozen roads thru the pitch darkness; yet at that time 
your only thought seemed to be to look out for me, the 
sleet having frozen on my glasses so that I was unable 
to see at all ; and I had to repeatedly ask you to look 
out for yourself, in view of your horse being smooth 
shod. You, like the rest of the party, ended the trip 
in first-class condition. Sincerely yours, 

Theodore Roosevelt. 

P. A. Surgeon Cary T. Grayson, U.S.N., 
Naval Dispensary, 

Washington, D. C. 



158 Jungle Roads 



XXI. The Chum of Boys 

HAVE taught my boys to take their own part," 
the President once said. "I do not know which 
I should punish my boys for quickest, for cruelty or for 
flinching !" 

Roosevelt's letters to his children reveal how he kept 
his mind and his heart on a level with his boys at 
each stage of their careers. In this respect he was like 
one of his heroes, Daniel Boone, who took his nine- 
year-old son with him on hunting expeditions, to train 
him in woodcraft. His eldest son has recently borne 
testimony to this trait. Lieutenant-Colonel Roosevelt 
has granted us permission to reprint from the Phila- 
delphia Public Ledger this account of the way in which 
the Colonel trained and companioned his boys: 

"From the time when we were very little boys 
we were always interested in military preparedness. My 
father believed very strongly in the necessity of each 
boy being able and willing not only to look out for him- 
self but to look out for those near and dear to him. 
This gospel was preached to us all from the time we 
were very, very small. A story, told in the family of 
an incident which happened long before I can remem- 
ber, illustrated this. Father told me one day always to 
be willing to fight any one who insulted me. Shortly 
after this wails of grief arose from the nursery. 
Mother ran upstairs and found my little brother Ker- 
mit howling in a corner. When she demanded explana- 
tion I told her that he had insulted me by taking away 




(Q Underwood & Underwood 

THE PRESIDENT ABOARD THE "MAYFLOWER" 



The Way to the White House 159 

some of my blocks so I had hit him on the head with 
a mechanical rabbit. 

"Our little boy fights were discussed in detail with 
father. Although he insisted on the willingness to 
fight he was the first to object to and punish anything 
that resembled bullying. We always told him every- 
thing, as we knew he would give us a real and sym- 
pathetic interest. 

"Funny incidents of these early combats stick in my 
mind. One day one of my brothers came home from 
school very proud. He said he had had a fight with 
a boy. When asked how the fight resulted he said 
he had won by kicking the boy in the windpipe. Fur- 
ther investigation developed the fact that the windpipe 
was the pit of the stomach. My brother felt that it 
must be the windpipe because when you kicked some 
one there he lost his breath. I can remember father 
to this day explaining that no matter how effective 
this method of attack was it was not considered sports- 
manlike to kick. 

"Father and mother believed in robust righteousness. 
In the stories and poems that they read us they always 
bore this in mind. 'Pilgrim's Progress' and 'The Battle 
Hymn of Republic' we knew when we were very young. 
When father was dressing for dinner he used to teach 
us poetry. I can remember memorizing all the most 
stirring parts of Longfellow's 'Saga of King Olaf/ 
'Sheridan's Ride' and the 'Sinking of the Cumberland.' 
The gallant incidents in history were told us in such a 
way that we never forgot them. In Washington when 
father was civil service commissioner I often walked 
to the office with him. On the way down he would 
talk history to me — not the dry history of dates and 



160 Jungle Roads 

charters, but the history where you yourself in imagi- 
nation could assume the role of the principal actors, as 
every well-constructed boy wishes to do when inter- 
ested. During every battle we would stop and father 
would draw out the full plan in the dust in the gutter 
with the tip of his umbrella. 

"We spent our summers at Oyster Bay. There, in 
addition to our family, were three other families of 
little Roosevelts. We were all taught out-of-door life. 
We spent our days riding and shooting, wandering 
through the woods and playing out-of-door games. Un- 
derlying all this was father's desire to have all of us 
children grow up manly and cleanminded, with not only 
the desire but the ability to play our part at the 
country's need. 

"Father himself was our companion whenever he 
could get away from his work. Many times he camped 
out with us on Lloyds Neck, the only 'grown up' of the 
party. We always regarded him as a great asset at 
times like these. He could think up more delightful 
things to do than we could in a 'month of Sundays.' " 

A boy from Catonsville, Md., climbed the steps of 
the White House. "I'm Sherwood Thompson, of the 
Catonsville 'Rough Riders,' " he told Secretary Loeb. 
"I've come to call on President Roosevelt. I was one 
of his escorts when he visited Baltimore four years ago." 

"But the President is engaged with Senators," Mr. 
Loeb explained kindly. 

"Hello, young Thompson, come over here ! How's 
that pony of yours !" someone called. It was the Presi- 
dent, remembering and greeting after four years a boy 
he had met only once ! 



The JVay to the White House .161 



AT SAGAMORE HILL 

The White House held second place in the President's 
affections ; Sagamore Hill was always his first choice. 
The house at Oyster Bay was the place he loved best. 
No matter how far off he wandered, his thoughts al- 
ways turned back to this spot. The demands made upon 
him by his public life served only to make him love 
his home more. 

Tfie Sagamore Hill estate was an ideal one for a 
nature-lover like Roosevelt. The roads are formed of 
gravel. Underwood grows thickly. Oak and maple 
trees abound. On the outskirts are fields, barns and 
gardens. From the house the waters of Long Island 
Sound can be seen. So fond was the Colonel of the 
birds at Oyster Bay that he had posted each Spring on 
trees on his grounds signs warning boys not to molest 
them or disturb their nests. 

The trophy room at Oyster Bay was a wonderful 
place to visit. When, during the world war, soldiers 
came to call on the Colonel, he guided them through 
this room, showing them the costly rug presented to 
him by the Sultan of Turkey; the immense elephant 
tusks presented to him by the Emperor of Abyssinia; 
the snuff-boxes from Pope Leo XIII ; and valuable gifts 
from the Empress of China, King Victor Emmanuel 
of Italy, the Czar of Russia, Indian chiefs and many 
other personages. 

Roosevelt taught his boys to shoot big game by first 
teaching them to shoot smaller game, such as possums 
and raccoons. 

He tells how one of his boys — a youngster of five 
years — rushed into his study to tell him that the hired 



162 Jungle Roads 

man had found a coon near the wood-pile pond, a 
muddy pool a few hundred yards from the house. 
Chickens had been slain by some such animal, and the 
Colonel was anxious to keep minks and coons from 
coming too near his coops, so he picked up his rifle 
and went down stairs. His small son followed, clasp- 
ing* the butt of the gun. The coon was found asleep 
in the hollow of a blasted chestnut, about forty feet 
from the ground. Roosevelt raised his rifle, but found 
that its rear sight was off. He was anxious to prove a 
good shot to his son, but to his vexation had to fire 
three or four shots before he brought down the coon. 
The father and son walked back to the house in tri- 
umph, each holding a hind leg of the coon. 

On another day, when the Colonel was out walking 
with two of his boys his dog Susan treed a possum. 
He shot it, and while his five-year-old remarked to his 
seven-year-old "it's the first time I've seen a fellow 
killed!" 

During the summer, Colonel Roosevelt loved to row 
and swim in Long Island Sound. Rev. Warren I. 
Bowman, the former pastor of the Methodist Church at 
Oyster Bay, thus described for Dr. Iglehart a rowing 
race he had with the Colonel : 

"Colonel Roosevelt was a fine swimmer. His 
daughter Ethel often came down with him to the Sound 
for a swim. One afternoon I saw Mr. Roosevelt and 
Miss Ethel plunging into the water and making a race 
for the float some distance out on the Sound. It was 
a close race, each reaching the goal about the same 
time. Miss Ethel dived from the float and swam about 
it for fifteen or twenty minutes. Meanwhile the 
Colonel walked back and forth on the float apparently 



The Way to the White House 163 

in a brown study. I suspected he was preparing some 
great message or speech. When his daughter had 
finished her swim, he banished his serious thoughts and 
resumed the sporting spirit, and the two dived to- 
gether and made a race back to the shore. 

"He was a fine oarsman ; he had powerful arms ; they 
were well skilled, and he made his boat fairly skip 
through the water. I am pretty strong myself and apt 
in handling the oars. One day I was out with my 
boat and, as was his custom, Mrs. Roosevelt and he 
were out in his boat, and I said to myself, 'I will pass 
him,' so I hurried and got pretty nearly up with him 
and he looked back and noticed that I was racing him. 
He struck his oars into the water, multiplied the 
stroke at a wonderful rate and the gap between was 
widened. He looked back at me laughingly, as much as 
to say, 'Young man, you must grow a little older before 
you can pass me.' " 

The Colonel's interest in the Boy Scout movement is 
thus set forth by Rev. George E. Talmage, rector of the 
Episcopal Church at Oyster Bay: 

"When General Baden-Powell was in this country in 
the interest of the new movement, there was an in- 
formal luncheon at Sagamore Hill, at which the general 
and some men prominent in the movement were pres- 
ent. The rector, although of little importance to the 
conference, was invited to meet them. He was intro- 
duced as 'my pastor,' and while the men tried their 
best to commit the Colonel to their cause they got no 
further than this — that he pointed out the importance of 
the individual scout master, and turned the discussion 
to a consideration of the merits of men in the village 
who might be fitted for such leadership. Without doubt 



164 Jungle Roads 

the invitation to the local pastor was for the very pur- 
pose of so turning the discussion. Later on he took 
a prominent place in the movement, and when the 
Roosevelt Troop of Boy Scouts was organized in the 
parish, consented to serve and did serve on the troop 
committee." 

Edward Bok, editor of The Ladies' Home Journal, 
has recently revealed that Colonel Roosevelt seriously 
considered taking the leadership of the Boy Scout move- 
ment in America. 

THE COLONEL'S PETS 

I have tried to make a list of the pets the Colonel 
and his children fostered. The task is too big, but here 
are some of them mentioned in his letters: 

Five guinea pigs, named by the boys, Bishop Doane, 
Dr. Johnson, Father Grady, Fighting Bob Evans, and 
Admiral Dewey; 

A small bear named Jonathan Edwards; Maude, a 
large white pig, an inhabitant of Keystone Ranch; 

The dogs Black Jack, Shady, Ace, Skip, Hector, 
Brier, Sailor Boy, Mike and Scamp; 

Josiah, the badger; 

The horses Fidelity, Yagenka, Betsy, Algonquin, 
Wyoming, Bleistein, Chief, Rusty, Ordgy, Renown; 

Slipper, a cat; 

Tom Quartz, the kitten that played hide and seek 
with the leg of Joseph Cannon, Speaker of the House; 

Bill, the lizard; 

A King snake and "two little wee snakes"; 

"The kitchen cat" (otherwise unnamed) ; 

And a hive of bees. 




(C) Underwjod & Vndcrwjod 

A TYPICAL AFRICAN HUNTING SCENE 



THROUGH THE AFRICAN WILDERNESS 
XXII. "Bwana Tumbo"— The Great Hunter 

"Beyond the sea there's much contented grunting, 
The wild hyena laughs; 
The elephant has trumpeted: 'No hunting! 
And no more photographs!' 

Beyond the sea the tom-toms are a-drumming, 

Farewell to Theodore; 
All Africa with business is now humming, 

Dried up the trail of gore. 

He will not change for monkeys, lions, tigers, 

The empire of the West, 
Sweet Oyster Bay's cool plunge for torrid Niger's, 

The man who knows no rest." _ (j 

—Walter Beverly Crane, in Life. 

AN elephant, straying from its herd, broke into a 
bazaar in Masingi, East Africa. It played havoc 
with the merchandise spread out for sale and created a 
panic among the natives. 

"Do not worry," their ruler told them, Colonel 
Roosevelt is on his way to hunt in this section; he 
will rid Masingi of bad elephants." 

Lions had approached Kilindini, the landing-place at 
Mombasa. The people were in terror. "Be at peace- 
President Roosevelt will slay them!" the natives were 
to 1 d. Thus Roosevelt's fame went before him. 

165 



166 Jungle Roads 

Roosevelt faced other dangers on this trip than those 
which arose from contact with wild animals. Some of 
the native tribes of the Somalis, called the Mullahs, 
had been showing signs of rebellion and it was feared 
by the British Government that they would go on the 
war-trail and attack white hunters. When these tribes 
go on the rampage, they set out for the hunting dis- 
tricts where game abounds and then if they meet white 
men trouble is likely to arise. To protect the Roosevelt 
party against such attacks, the Governor of the pro- 
tectorate was ordered by the Colonial Office in Lon- 
don to use all available means of safeguarding the 
Colonel and his comrades. Due probably to these pre- 
cautions, no conflicts with the Mullahs occurred. 

The welcome that awaited Roosevelt at Mombasa de- 
lighted him. Natives from all parts of the country 
had heard of the coming of the "Great White Chief" 
and had poured into Mombasa to greet him. The 
black women wore flaring dresses of cheap, many- 
colored cotton prints and huge anklets of silver, 
wrought by hand and weighing many pounds. Farther 
back in the country the cotton cloth was replaced as a 
dress material by the skins of wild animals, and on that 
part of the limbs which the furs did not cover, rolls 
of iron or copper wire were worn. 

Mingling with the natives who thronged Mombasa to 
greet the great American were many Britons. The 
best blood of the British Empire flowed in the veins 
of these English settlers. They were men and women 
who had ample incomes, being members of the aris- 
tocracy and of wealthy classes who had been drawn to 
Africa by a love of the wilderness. They greeted 
Roosevelt with warmth and admiration, and made him 



Through the African Wilderness 167 

the guest of honor at a dinner given at the Mombasa 
Club. 

Roosevelt, while arrangements for his hunting were 
being completed, found time to go sight-seeing. 

He visited the spot in Mombasa where until within 
a few decades, Tippu-Tib, a notorious Arab slave- 
dealer, had brought in the natives captured by him in 
his raids through the jungle, and had sold them at 
auction to the Arabs of Mombasa. 

He also visited the ancient fort which, in the sev- 
enth century, was begun by Arab conquerors. Vasco 
Da Gama, the famous Portuguese explorer, had come 
to these shores at a later period and had completed the 
building of this fort. Its massive walls had changed 
ownership many times. Within the enclosure the white 
man and the Arab had fought again and again for its 
control. Then came a time when Yussuf, an Arab 
chieftain, defeated the Portuguese governor, whereupon 
followed a massacre in which every white man, woman 
and child were put to death. 

Pleased as the Colonel was with Mombasa and its 
people, he was yet anxious to be off for the hunt. It 
was decided that the party should go by special train 
to Nairobi, which was to be used as hunting head- 
quarters. 

A hunter reported that he had recently shot in the 
cannibal country an elephant whose tusks weighed 290 
pounds. "That promises good sport!" Roosevelt cried. 

Baron Tallian de Vizek, a Hungarian hunter, re- 
ported that he had found plenty of antelope, zebra, 
elands, gnu and rhinoceri. 

"Guess we won't have our trip for nothing, Kermit !" 
laughed the Colonel. 



168 Jungle Roads 

Their ride on the Uganda Railway was in itself a 
unique experience for the travelers. Roosevelt was 
proud to find that the locomotives used on this rail- 
road had been made in Philadelphia. The country 
through which the train passed abounded with wild 
animals. It was, in fact, a gigantic zoological garden 
where every sort of jungle creature could be seen. 

The cow-catcher of the engine was used as an 
observation car. A seat wide enough to hold five per- 
sons was fastened on to the engine's front, resting on 
the cow-catcher. Roosevelt, it need not be said, occu- 
pied a place on this unique sight-seeing contrivance. 

No traveler enters into the wilds of Africa without 
thinking of men who went before into these vast 
jungles — such as the valiant missionary David Living- 
stone and the fearless explorer Henry M. Stanley. 

LIVINGSTONE AND STANLEY 

Livingstone had been sent to Africa by the Lon- 
don Missionary Society, and had begun work in Bech- 
uanaland. As he skirted the wilderness he yearned to 
be able to penetrate their depths, to reach the multi- 
tudes who had never heard the Gospel. At last an 
English big game hunter, William Cotton Oswell, 
supplied him with funds and the two men together be- 
gan to explore the "regions beyond." 

In June, 1851, they reached Central Zambesi. Liv- 
ingstone then returned, procured more funds, and made 
a remarkable journey into Central Africa from the 
South, tracing the Zambesi river to near its source 
and discovering streams leading into the Congo. 

Stanley was born in Wales. His father died when the 
boy was young and Henry was left to the care of a work- 
house. He escaped from this and went to live with an 



Through the African Wilderness 169 

aunt in Liverpool and when the Civil War broke out in 
America joined the Southern side. Later he enlisted 
in the United States Navy and by his letters to news- 
papers, began his career as a journalist. 

In 1868 he offered himself to the New York Herald 
as a correspondent for the English campaign in Abys- 
sinia and was accepted. He then received a cable- 
gram from James Gordon Bennett, editor of the Her- 
ald, instructing him to find Livingstone. He started 
from Zanzibar on March 21st, 1871, with a company 
of three white men, thirty-one armed Zanzibar free- 
men, and 153 porters. He carried bales of cloth and 
loads of beads and wire in place of money. 

At an Arab port on Lake Tanganyika he heard that 
an old white man had passed that way. The hope that 
this was Livingstone spurred Stanley. 

A six hours' march brought them to Ujiji. The na- 
tives flocked about them. A tall black man, clad in a 
long white shirt, said "Good Morning!" in English. 

"Who are you?" asked Stanley. 

"I am Susi, Sir, the servant of Dr. Livingstone." 

Stanley, overjoyed, followed Susi to the market-place 
of the town and found an old man clad in a red flan- 
nel blouse, gray trousers, and a blue cap. 

"Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" he said, lifting his 
helmet. 

"Yes!" said the old man with a smile. 

"I thank God, doctor, that I have been permitted to 
see you!" said Stanley. 

"I feel more thankful that I am here to welcome 
you !" replied Livingstone. 

Livingstone decided that it was his duty to stay and 
finish his work. Eight months later he died. 



170 Jungle Roads 

Stanley then undertook the duty of continuing Liv- 
ingston's explorations. 

When he met the Emperor of Uganda, Stanley 
translated the Gospel of St. Luke for him. The Em- 
peror, M'tesa, grew interested in the Christian religion. 
"Shall we believe in Jesus or in Mohammed?" he 
asked his people. 

"Jesus !" they said. The white men had won because 
they had set a better example than the Arab traders 
who believed in Mohammed. 

Stanley circled Lake Victoria Nyanza and traced 
"Livingston's River" to its outlet into the Atlantic 
Ocean. To do this Stanley had to cut his way through 
hundreds of miles of almost impassable forests, bat- 
tling with cannibal tribes most of the journey. It was 
through these historic regions the Roosevelt party 
journeyed. 

On the evening preceding the day of the Colonel's 
trip, giraffes had knocked down a telegraph pole and 
some wires along the track, thus putting the telegraph 
service out of commission. 

The train rolled away from the jungles of the coast, 
passed through magnificent forests, and emerged on 
broad prairies. On this open land the hunters saw 
immense numbers of antelopes, zebras and ostriches. 
The Colonel could not but contrast his easy entrance 
into Africa with the hardships endured by Livingstone 
and Stanley when they blazed a trail into its heart. 

The clatter of the trains had frightened the lion and 
the rhinoceros from the vicinity of the tracks, but in 
some places the lion could still be seen. One of the 
places passed through was Simba, called "The Place 



ThrougH the African Wilderness 171 

of Lions." At "Rift Valley" they beheld vast flocks 
of flamingoes, as well as giraffes and elephants. 

Roosevelt left the train at Kepiti Plain Station. 
Here his host, Sir Alfred Pease, greeted him. With 
him was R. J. Cuninghame, a Scotch scout and hunter, 
who was to guide the party. Two hundred natives, 
who were to act as gun-bearers, tent-boys and horse- 
boys, shouted their welcome. With them were fifteen 
native soldiers, to keep order among the porters. 

At one place where they pitched tents the grass took fire 
and threatened to burn up the camp and the outfits. 
However, all hands set to work to fight it. Colonel 
Roosevelt took an active part, and his experience with 
prairie fires on our Western prairies helped him con- 
quer this jungle blaze. All of the grass surrounding 
the camp was at once cleared away and the tents were 
thus made safe. 



172 Jungle Roads 



XXIII. Tracking Big Game 

ROOSEVELT hunted in two ways. At first he 
made his headquarters on the estate of settlers 
like Sir Alfred Pease, George McMillan or Hugh 
Heatley, and made daily trips into the jungle for 
game. After that he marched with his porters into the 
wilderness, pitching his tent at night, and going daily 
farther into the jungle. This latter mode of traveling 
was called "on safari." The string of blacks, bearing 
heavy loads, marched along the trail as happy as 
children. 

They would wear the clothing that the government 
regulations required, but whenever possible they would 
add to it some comical ornament, such as a red fez, 
or a head-dress of feathers, or pieces of skin. The 
native who secured possession of an umbrella, no mat- 
ter how torn or faded it was, was fortunate indeed, in 
the eyes of his fellows. The march would be en- 
livened by the blowing of horns or the beating of tom- 
toms, or the chanting of native refrains. 

The "askiris," or camp policemen, marched at the 
front. Then came the head-man, who was free of 
the duty of carrying a burden, and whose sign of 
authority was a dirty-white umbrella. Then came the 
flag-bearer, holding aloft "Old Glory." Then came 
a man whose duty it was to either blow an antelope 
horn or beat a drum to keep the porters stepping 
lively. 



Through the African Wilderness 173 

At the day's end, the tents were pitched in rows, 
with a street between them, a camp-fire was kindled, 
and the Colonel and his comrades sat around it and 
read or chatted. 

The Colonel's tent was covered by an awning to 
protect it from the tropical sun. It had a rear 
apartment for bathing and a canvas floor to keep out 
ticks, jiggers and scorpions. 

SLAYING THE LION 

To arouse the game, the native beaters strode before 
the hunters, urged on by the "head man." They were 
provided with all sorts of noise-making devices to 
scare the beasts. The beaters as a rule go into the 
jungle timidly, but they had heard that Roosevelt was a 
great hunter, and showed no fear. Kermit secured 
as many trophies with his camera as he did with his 
gun. Colonel Roosevelt bagged most of the speci- 
mens. At the Pease ranch, however, Kermit shot the 
first animal — an antelope that sped past him. Two 
days later the Colonel shot two wildebeests and a 
gazelle. Such hunting was too tame for Roosevelt. He 
was eager to track the lion, rhinoceros, hippopotamus 
and elephant. His desire was soon gratified. On a lion 
hunt a few days later, a big lion sprang from the 
bushes. Roosevelt met it as coolly as though he had 
been lion-hunting all his life, and easily killed it. 

While on this trip Kermit lost himself in the wilder- 
ness and was forced to spend the night alone in its 
depths. His father, greatly anxious, was overjoyed 
when he found his way into camp the next day. Leav- 
ing the Pease ranch, the party went to that of Mr. 



174 Jungle Roads 

George McMillan, an American who had been attracted 
to this wild country from St. Louis. 

The native way of killing lions was far different 
from that of the white sportsmen. Long, sharp spears 
were the only weapons used by the blacks. They came 
upon a lion and spread out and surrounded him. Then 
they closed in upon the roaring beast. The spears- 
men approached until they were within a few yards 
of the lion. He charged them repeatedly, but each 
time the warriors remained steadfast, repelling the 
snarling brute with their weapons. At last he gath- 
ered himself for a desperate leap against his enemies. 
A dozen spears entered his body. Nevertheless, he 
managed to drag down one of the hunters, who, how- 
ever, escaped without serious wounds. 

On another such hunt a native spearsman found 
himself deserted by his fellows when the lion made 
his last desperate spring. He stood his ground. The 
lion, speared by the hunter, bit and clawed him, but 
the spearsman saved himself from serious injury by 
thrusting his elbow into the dying brute's mouth. His 
arm was chewed and gashed, but not beyond healing. 

An encounter with a large, black-maned lion in the 
Sotik district brought Roosevelt as near to death as he 
was at any time throughout the trip. The lion may 
not be the most dangerous African beast when un- 
molested, but when wounded or cornered it fights des- 
perately and a man who approaches it is in grave peril. 
Such was the case with Roosevelt. The brute had taken 
refuge in a clump of bushes. The beaters were trying 
to drive it from its lair. 

Suddenly the lion sprang from the bush, growling 
furiously. It charged full speed at Roosevelt. With 



Through the African Wilderness 175 

cool courage and deliberate aim he fired his rifle. The 
bullet went true, and the lion fell in a heap almost at 
the Colonel's feet. The bullet struck the animal in the 
chest and entered its heart. Roosevelt's escape was 
narrow, yet he had the satisfaction of knowing that 
he had met the chief peril of the jungle and come out 
safe by his own wit and steadiness. 

In this locality Kermit was fortunate enough to kill 
a large, tawny-maned lion that was the largest of its 
kind obtained by the expedition. 

THE AFRICAN BUFFALO 

There came now an echo of Roosevelt's hunt for 
American bison, for on these trips into the jungle he 
met and slew the African buffalo. This beast is dan- 
gerous because of his tendency to charge the hunter. 
The rush of a herd carries everything before it. 
Roosevelt and his comrades found a herd of these 
lurking in a papyrus swamp. They wounded two of 
them. The hunters had no thought that there were 
others buffaloes nearby, but suddenly a big herd of 
them rushed out into the open and halted before them. 
Had the brutes charged in the direction of the hunters, 
the men would have been trampled to death. If any 
of the party had shown fear and started to run the 
beasts would have pursued. If a shot were fired at 
one or two, the herd would have rushed at its assailants. 
The men stared at the buffaloes; the buffaloes stared 
at them. Then, suddenly, the herd relieved the sus- 
pense by turning and scampering away in the oppo- 
site direction. 



176 Jungle Roads 

AN ELEPHANT CHARGE 

F. C. Selous, the famous big game hunter, who in his 
career killed over three hundred lions, was for a time 
Roosevelt's companion in Africa. It was Selous's 
wise counsel that saved Roosevelt from a dangerous 
situation when the hunters came upon a herd of ele- 
phants. 

The Colonel had gone into a dense thicket in pursuit 
of a wounded lion. Following him went Selous and 
Kermit. The Colonel, meanwhile, had caught sight of 
a herd of elephants, led by a huge tusker. Roosevelt 
lifted his gun to fire. 

Selous called to him: 

"For the life of you, don't shoot ! A bullet will bring 
a charge of the herd and we may be trampled to 
death. Follow me!" 

The three men climbed a nearby tree. From this po- 
sition Roosevelt raised his Winchester and sent a half- 
dozen bullets into the leader of the herd. 

The elephant, screaming with pain, charged, but 
when close to the tree he fell with a crash. The 
remainder of the herd rushed into the forest. The 
warning of Selous had probably saved the Colonel 
from being trampled by the beast or from being 
crushed by its swirling trunk. 

Another battle with an elephant occurred after the 
party had followed the tracks of a small herd and 
come upon it in a dense part of the jungle. Roose- 
velt caught a glimpse of a big bull elephant which was 
resting his tusks on the branch of a tree. The elephant 
fell, severely wounded, but just at that moment another 
bull elephant broke through the bushes and charged so 



Through the African .Wilderness 177 

close to the Colonel that if he had not been panic- 
stricken, he could have caught Roosevelt in his trunk. 
Cuninghame fired but the brute's rush had carried him 
to safety. 

One day the party met a baby elephant, about two 
months old. They took it alive to camp by means of 
a rope and sent it as a gift to the Zoological Gardens 
at New York. 

HUNTING THE HIPPOPOTAMUS 

In the Sotik district the hunters had an exciting battle 
with a hippopotamus. This animal is at home in either 
deep or shallow water, but he prefers the shallows, in 
which he can travel fast. 

Roosevelt and his party were skirting the shore of 
Lake Naivasha. On the shore of a little bay they 
espied a big hippopotamus. Cuninghame, Kermit and 
the Colonel entered a rowboat and started toward him. 
The last-named fired a bullet through the shoulder of 
the beast while he was about one hundred yards 
away. 

The beast sprang into the water, and with gaping 
jaws, lumbered toward their boat. The Colonel fired 
his gun repeatedly, while Kermit fired — his camera! 
The hippopotamus approached dangerously close to the 
boat, but at last one of the bullets tore into a vital 
spot, and he fell dead in the water. 

Roosevelt, while visiting the Attenborough brothers 
at Lake Naivasha, remembered that he had not yet 
added to his bag a bull hippopotamus. His hosts in- 
sisted on his hunting one in their lake. 

Roosevelt found and shot his hippopotamus without 



178 Jungle Roads 

great trouble, though this type of beast is dangerous 
when aroused. 

In recalling his African experiences in his Auto- 
biography, Roosevelt touched very modestly upon his 
encounters with wild beasts: 

"Taking into account not only my own personal ex- 
perience, but the experiences of many veteran hunters, 
I regard all the four African animals, but especially 
the lion, elephant, and buffalo, as much more dangerous 
than the grizzly. As it happened, however, the only 
narrow escape I personally ever had was from a 
grizzly, and in Africa the animal killed closest to me 
as it was charging was a rhinoceros — all of which goes 
to show that a man must not generalize too broadly 
from his own personal experiences. On the whole, I 
think the lion the most dangerous of all these five 
animals; that is, I think that, if fairly hunted, there is 
a larger percentage of hunters killed or mauled for a 
given number of lions killed than for a given number 
of any one of the other animals. Yet I personally had 
no difficulties with lions. I twice killed lions which 
were at bay and just starting to charge, and I killed a 
heavy-maned male while it was in full charge. But in 
each instance I had plenty of leeway, the animal being 
so far off that even if my bullet had not been fatal 
I should have had time for a couple more shots. A 
bull elephant, a vicious 'rogue/ which had been killing 
people in the native villages, did charge before being 
shot at. My son Kermit and I stopped it at forty yards. 
Another bull elephant, also unwounded, which charged, 
nearly got me, as I had just fired both cartridges from 
my heavy double-barreled rifle in killing the bull I 
was after — the first wild elephant I had ever seen. The 



Through the African Wilderness 179 

second bull came through the thick brush to my left 
like a steam plow through a light snowdrift, everything 
snapping before his rush, and was so near that he could 
have hit me with his trunk. I slipped past him behind 
a tree. People have asked me how I felt on this occa- 
sion. My answer has always been that I suppose I felt 
as most men of like experience feel on such occasions. 
At such a moment a hunter is so very busy that he 
has no time to get frightened. He wants to get in his 
cartridges and try another shot." 

Mr. McMillan, whom Colonel Roosevelt visited on 
his ranch near Nairobi, said: 

"Colonel Roosevelt is a fair shot, not an extraordinary 
marksman. Kermit is a better shot than his father, as 
Colonel Roosevelt admits to every one except Kermit. 
He is afraid it would make the young man think too 
much of himself to tell him so. It does not, however, 
take any wonderful marksmanship to hit an elephant 
or rhinoceros." 

"Bwano Tumbo is a mighty hunter," said Cuning- 
hame, "but if his laurels have been imperiled at all on 
this expedition it has been by Kermit, who is one of the 
deadliest shots and nerviest men, young or old, I ever 
met." 

The President in a letter to his daughter Ethel, from 
the 'Nzor River, Africa, described vividly the sensation 
of a night spent in the jungle, with hyenas howling and 
lions roaring about the camp. In this letter he pays a 
warm tribute to Kermit, praising him for his keenness, 
cool nerve, horsemanship and other sportsmanlike quali- 
ties. He states that it is rare for a boy with Kermit's 
refined tastes and love of literature to be at the same 
time a bold, cool, hardy hunter. 



i8o Jungle Roads 

In the National Museum in Washington may be seen 
the trophies Roosevelt brought back from the hunt. The 
metal plates which explain to visitors the contents of 
the cases, are enduring witnesses of his prowess as 
a hunter and his skill as a naturalist. 

Roosevelt was not the kind of hunter who goes forth 
merely to slaughter. He shot nothing on his African 
trip except what was required in the interest of science 
or for food for his caravan. He expressed his abhor- 
ence of the wanton killing of game in these words: 

"Kermit and I kept about a dozen trophies for our- 
selves. Otherwise we shot nothing that was not used 
either as a museum specimen or for meat — usually for 
both purposes. We were on hunting grounds practically as 
good as any that had ever existed; but we did not kill 
a tenth, nor a hundredth part of what we might have 
killed had we been willing. The mere size of the bag 
indicates little as to a man's prowess as a hunter, and 
almost nothing as to the interest or value of his achieve- 
ments." 



Through the African Wilderness 181 



XXIV. The Return From the Jungle 

T7ROM Nairobi the naturalists shipped to America the 
■■- specimens they had gathered. The long homeward 
journey began. They went south of the railroad into 
the Sotik district, which abounded in birds and beasts 
of all kinds. They hunted northward in the region of 
Mt. Elgon, a district known as Uasin Gishu Plateau. 
After that a visit was made to Lake Victoria Nyanza. 
Here they boarded a steamer and went to Entebbe, the 
headquarters of the British Governor of Uganda. 

At Campalla the Colonel met the native king of 
Uganda, and in a Catholic mission there was thrilled 
to hear the native children, under the direction of 
Father Paul, a friend of the Colonel, sing our national 
anthem, "The Star Spangled Banner." From the vic- 
inity of Victoria Nyanza they followed the road 160 
miles to Lake Albert Nyanza, where tribal chiefs 
brought them gifts of fruit and sheep. From this lake 
they went by boat past the mouth of the Victorian 
Nile, which teemed with crocodiles, into the White 
Nile, where they came to a hot country known as the 
"Lardo." From this region they marched to Gondo- 
koro, and here, after an eleven months' trip their 
hunting ended. 

Gondokoro proved to be a settlement at which a few 
traders made their headquarters. Small shops kept by 
Greeks and Indians were found there. It is located on 
the White Nile. Once a month the place was visited 
by steamers from Khartoum. A large ivory and slave 



182 Jungle Roads 

trade once centered here, and ivory trading is still car- 
ried on. The community is also a famous mission sta- 
tion. 

On the outskirts of the town, Chief Keriba, attended 
by his native band, met the Roosevelt expedition and es- 
corted them into Gondokoro. The first tune to greet the 
Colonel was "America." 

At Gondokoro Colonel Roosevelt and Kermit were 
overjoyed to receive a message from Mrs. Roosevelt 
and Ethel, who had arrived at Naples on their way 
to Khartoum to meet the Colonel. 

"It made me realize just how near home I was get- 
ting!" he said. 

On Cleopatra's River 

At the end of the hunting expedition, the Colonel 
chose the Nile River as the route for his return to 
civilization. The source of the Nile is in Uganda. Its 
head waters are in lake Victoria Nyanza, which is at an 
elevation of four thousand feet. From here the Nile 
flows down through the smaller lake of Albert Nyanza, 
and then continues on its course for three thousand 
and five hundred miles, where it flows into the Medit- 
erranean. Parts of the Nile are unnavigable, so that to 
make the entire journey, one must go by foot-paths 
past rapids, then by canoe or steamboat, then by 
rail, and then again by boat. 

At Gondokoro, Uganda, the Colonel boarded the Gov- 
ernment steamer "Dal." Towed by the steamer was a 
huge barge, bearing the specimens secured in the hunt, 
in charge of eleven picturesque negroes who had be- 
longed to his "safari." The boat route continued to 
Khartoum, a desert city, the history of which is full of 



Through the African Wilderness 183 

stirring episodes. When the Mahdi rebellion occurred 
in the Egyptian Soudan, in 1884, this city which was a 
headquarter for English officials, was attacked by the 
Arab insurrectionists. General Gordon defended it, but 
before the army sent to aid him reached the place, the 
city fell and brave Gordon was slain. 

The English retired and left the Arabs in possession. 
The latter then built the city of Omdurman, across the 
river from Khartoum. In 1898 Kitchener led the Eng- 
lish against the Arabs and defeated them, ending their 
control in this territory. At Khartoum today stands Gor- 
don College, named in honor of the gallant General, and 
the sons of Arabs who fought against Gordon are among 
its students. 

Below Khartoum a series of cataracts make the Nile 
difficult to navigate. The Roosevelt party, now in- 
creased by Mrs. Roosevelt and Ethel, who had joined 
the Colonel at Khartoum, went by train a distance of 
about six hundred miles, where at Wady Halh" they re- 
sumed their river voyage. 

At Abu Sambul, they viewed four tremendous statues 
of Rameses the Great overlooking the valley of the 
Nile. At Assouan they visited tombs containing the 
mummies of Egyptian kings who had lived a thousand 
years before Christ. At Luxor they saw the ruins of the 
ancient city of Thebes, where the most ancient as well 
as the best specimens of Egyptian art and architecture, 
such as the temple of Ammon, were still standing. The 
guide who took Roosevelt through the tombs of the 
kings at Karnak and Luxor was surprised to find that 
the former was well informed as to the lives of the 
ancient rulers. Hatesu VIII, he remembered, was the 
first woman ruler of civilized history. 



184 Jungle Roads 

From Luxor, the party continued to Cairo, the mod- 
ern capital of Egypt. Here they mounted camels and 
visited by moonlight the Great Sphinx and the pyramids. 
The Sphinx, a wingless lion with a human head, was 
found to be 189 feet long, carved out of an enormous 
rock by Egyptian sculptors, probably of the fourth dyn- 
asty. 

At Cairo, when cheered by the Americans who called 
on him, he replied : "I wish I could give three cheers for 
every State from California to Massachusetts." 

In Cairo, where the Mohammedan religion holds sway, 
Roosevelt paid a visit to the Elazhar mosque, which 
houses a Moslem university. The Colonel, in spite of 
the fact that he was an ex-President of the United 
States, was an infidel to the followers of Mohammed, 
and he was asked to tie yellow-colored Moslem shoes 
over his boots, so that the floors of the temple would 
not be profaned by the touch of an unbeliever. With 
amused tolerance, he complied. He found in the Uni- 
versity that the teaching of the Koran was continued 
just as it had been for over a thousand years. The 
students, taught by white-bearded sheiks, droned out 
verses from Allah's Sacred Book. He found out that 
some of the students spent their entire lives in the 
University. Before he left Cairo, Wally Bey, a devout 
Mohammedan, as a token of appreciation of Roose- 
velt's interest in the Moslem religion, presented him with 
twelve books of the Koran, in Arabic, beautifully illu- 
minated in gold, and probably two centuries old. 

From Cairo the Roosevelts sailed to Alexandria and 
then took steamer for Naples, Italy. 



Through the African Wilderness 185 



XXV. "Hang These Kings !" 

SETH BULLOCK, Marshal of North Dakota, was 
wanted in London. His old chief had sent a cable- 
gram to him. Colonel Roosevelt, surrounded by kings 
and court dignitaries, was lonely. He wanted to talk 
to a man after his own heart. "Hang these kings ! I 
wish they would leave me alone!" he exclaimed jok- 
ingly when the monarchs and princes of Europe 
crowded in on him at Dorchester House, London, where 
they had gathered at the death of King Edward. 

Roosevelt, when he decided to take a journey 
through Europe on his way home from Africa, had 
planned to travel as a private citizen. When, however, 
he emerged from the jungle and started down the Nile, 
the crowds that thronged at each landing to cheer him, 
showed him that he must submit to celebrations and 
banquets and parades wherever he went. In Egypt 
his reception was far more enthusiastic than that given 
to Prince Eitel, the Kaiser's son, who was then visiting 
that land. 

At Alexandria the Colonel and his party took a 
steamer for Italy and here his triumphal journey 
through the courts of the old world began. 

In Rome, "The Eternal City," he dined with the king 
and queen of Italy and found them delightful folk. He 
was amused, when he came to dine at the palace, to 
find a court rule that made him hold on to his hat 
until after he had walked into the table with the queen. 
When he entered the anteroom he tried to put down 



1 86 Jungle Roads 

his hat, but the attendant looked horrified and returned 
it to him. When he saw the queen approaching he 
again tried to put it down, but was again prevented. 
He found out at last that he was expected to walk in 
with the queen on one arm and his hat in the other 
hand. It reminded him of an East-Side wedding he had 
attended when Police Commissioner, at which he had 
escorted the bride's mother, with the lady on one arm 
and the hat in his other hand. The king invited the 
Colonel to go out to his country-place for the strange 
sport of digging badgers, but Roosevelt was forced to 
decline. 

When Roosevelt agreed to deliver the Romanes Lec- 
ture at Oxford, he did not dream what a great task 
he was entering upon. When the news was announced, 
the Kaiser wanted him to speak in the University of 
Berlin. France wanted him to speak at the Sorbonne ; 
Norway beseeched him to give the Nobel Lecture at 
Christiania; and so it went. Thus, on his way to Lon- 
don, he visited Rome, Vienna, Budapest, Paris, Brussels, 
The Hague, Copenhagen, Christiania, Stockholm, and 
Berlin. 

Roosevelt found the sovereigns of Europe living what 
seemed to him pitifully restricted lives, shut off from 
contact with most of their people and with the rest of 
the world. They were eager to hear from him the 
stories that had come to them of his Wild- West adven- 
tures. They asked him how Ben Daniels, marshal of 
Arizona, got his ear bit off while enforcing the law; 
or they desired him to describe what was meant by a 
"gun-fighter." His encounters with grizzlies and pumas 
in America thrilled them, and they listened to his ad- 
ventures in Africa with fascination. 



Through the African Wilderness 187 

On the field of Vincennes in France, mimic warfare 
was conducted for the Colonel's benefit. "There was 
one thing I absolutely had to see here before I went to 
Germany," said he, "and that was the French army." 

When he spoke at the Sorbonne, the entrance was 
covered with American and French flags, and multi- 
tudes crowded around the building to cheer him. Of 
his address the journal "Liberte" said: 

"We have few men in France with energy equal to 
Mr. Roosevelt's, but thousands upon thousands who 
think as he does." 

In Belgium King Albert greeted the Colonel warmly. 
The two had met in the United States when the king 
was crown prince. 

In Holland Roosevelt told the people who greeted 
him: "I am visiting the country from which my people 
came three centuries ago." 

Queen Wilhelmina awaited the Roosevelt party at her 
castle Het Loo, situated eighty miles away from The 
Hague. The Colonel arrived when Princess Juliana 
Louise Emma Marie Wilhelmina, who in spite of her 
title and long name was only one year old, was having a 
birthday celebration. 

The Queen was very much interested in hearing 
about the founder of Roosevelt's family, who centuries 
before, had left Holland for America. Roosevelt 
had quoted in his address an old nursery rhyme, and 
the queen referred to this verse and mentioned in turn 
some that had been sung to her when she was a child. 

The next day the Roosevelt party inspected a display 
of tulips, Holland's world-famous flower. It was 
pointed out to the Colonel that every year over eight 
million pounds of tulips were shipped by Holland 



1 88 Jungle Roads 

to America, where, as we know, they blossom into 
gorgeous crimson and golden cups in parks and gardens. 

When the travelers arrived at the Danish Court, in 
Copenhagen, they were met by Crown Prince Chris- 
tian. An entire palace was loaned to the party. The 
American minister, Maurice Francis Egan, guided the 
Colonel through the mazes of court custom. Roosevelt, 
however, had lost his baggage en route, and had to 
dine at the palace in a gray flannel shirt. When he 
first met the crown prince the thought of his missing 
dress suit was on his mind, and his first words to the 
prince were: 

"I want to tell you about my baggage!" 

The most interesting part of Roosevelt's visit to 
Denmark came when he visited the historic castle of 
Elsinore. Here the royal characters who appear in 
Hamlet are said to have lived. On these walls the 
ghost of Hamlet's father strode. The Danes told the 
Colonel their belief that Shakespeare had actually visited 
Elsinore with a company of players, and that on this 
visit the idea for his immortal drama had come to him. 

"I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape and bid 
me hold my peace !" Roosevelt exclaimed as he walked 
the walls, repeating Hamlet's words. 

The Colonel's intimate knowledge of wild beasts was 
revealed when, at Copenhagen, he was presented with 
four plaques of Danish porcelain, decorated with pic- 
tures of wild animals. 

"This is not an African elephant !" he said of one il- 
lustration. 

"You are right," replied the giver. "We had no" 
study of African elephants, so we used the Asiatic 
type." 



Through the African Wilderness 189 

Little Prince Olaf of Norway was wildly excited. A 
great hunter had come to visit his father and mother, 
King Haakon and Queen Maud. The visitor had 
brought his wife and son and daughter with him, and 
they were all the kind of folks a boy likes to play 
with. And Olaf, even if he was a prince, liked just 
what other boys liked. 

Olaf had a liking for stories of wild animals. The 
great hunter had just come from Africa, where he had 
shot all kinds of savage beasts. He told Olaf of his 
adventures, and trie young prince listened with open 
mouth, and staring eyes. Then the hunter, even 
though the king and queen were looking on, began to 
romp over the palace floor with Olaf just as if he 
were Olaf's own age. Olaf was so delighted that he 
shrieked. The court was in an uproar. The attend- 
ants were startled. Nothing like this had ever hap- 
pened. Who was this American who was upsetting 
court dignity? 

When they heard that it was Theodore Roosevelt, 
they understood. His fame had spread before him. 
He was the man who treated monarchs just as if they 
were plain people. And most surprising of all, they 
had learned, the kings and princes liked to be treated 
this way. They could prove it by their own eyes. 
Weren't King Haakon and Queen Maud delighted to 
see Olaf playing with this friendly man? 

When Olaf heard that Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt and 
Kermit and Ethel were going away, he was broken- 
hearted. 

Later, he went with his parents to London, and when 
he entered Buckingham Palace, where Queen Alexan- 
dra of Britain stayed, he heard that Colonel Roose- 



190 Jungle Roads 

velt was calling on her. He demanded to see him — in 
fact, he squealed to see him! 

He found the Colonel at last, and there began an- 
other game of romps ! 

Roosevelt tossed him in the air and rolled him on the 
floor just as he had done to his own sons when they 
were young, and Olaf's cries of delight were so loud 
that they brought the Empress of Russia to the door. 
Her coming stopped the play, although Olaf clamored 
to be again tossed to the ceiling. 

At Christiania, Roosevelt made a strong address in 
which he advocated an agreement among nations to 
reduce armies and navies, and to bring about a League 
of Peace. 

"We should form a League of Peace," he said, "not 
only to keep the peace among ourselves, but to pre- 
vent, by force if necessary, its being broken by others." 

When Roosevelt met the princes and noblemen of 
Austria, they were very eager to know how he in- 
tended to educate his boys. They looked at Kermit 
with admiration, and wondered how a youth so quiet 
and modest could have killed lions and elephants. Then 
the Colonel, perhaps to have fun with Kermit, told 
them that Ted was a still better shot and rider than 
either he or Kermit was. 

He answered their questions about his sons' educa- 
tion by telling them that Ted, when he left Harvard, 
had gone into a mill; worked in a blouse; carried a 
dinner pail; become one with his fellow-workmen; and 
that he had gone from the mill to San Francisco, where 
he had learned how to sell carpets. 

He told them that Kermit, when his Harvard course 
was ended, would have the same training. He let these 



Through the African Wilderness 191 

noblemen, who were too often spendthrifts and idlers, 
know that he would feel disgraced if any of his sons 
refused to work hard for his living. 

When the Colonel reached Berlin he found an invi- 
tation awaiting him to be the guest of the Kaiser. Mrs. 
Roosevelt was not mentioned in the invitation. The 
Colonel, discovering this, declined the invitation and 
informed the Emperor that he would stop at the Ameri- 
can embassy. The invitation was repeated. "Mrs. 
Roosevelt and I," replied the Colonel, with the em- 
phasis on the 'Mrs.', "will stop at the Embassy." The 
Kaiser at last saw that Roosevelt did not mean to go to 
a place where his wife was not welcomed and sent an 
invitation that included Mrs. Roosevelt and himself, 
whereupon the Colonel accepted. 

It is interesting to recall, in view of the later events 
in which, Roosevelt helping, the German army was re- 
duced to a ghost of its former might, that on his trip 
through Germany the Colonel sat on a horse beside 
the Kaiser and watched the latter's army wage a 
realistic sham battle. To attire himself fittingly for 
this spectacle, Roosevelt wore his American campaign- 
ing outfit, consisting of khaki jacket and riding 
breeches, tan leggings, and a black slouch hat. The 
Emperor wore the uniform of a general of infantry. 
When the engagement was over, the Kaiser, with more 
pride than he was able to display in the real battles of 
the world war, approached the Colonel, and said in the 
presence of his pompous staff officers: 

"Mein freund Roosevelt, I am happy to welcome you 
in the presence of my guards. We are glad you have 
seen a part of our army. You are the only private 
citizen who ever reviewed German troops!" 



192 Jungle Roads 

Several years later the Kaiser's war-weary soldiers 
had a chance to review our troops. We called them 
"The American Army of Occupation," and Roosevelt's 
eldest son was among them as a Lieutenant-Colonel — 
but that of course is another story. 

In London, due to the death of King Edward, the 
Colonel's entrance into the city was a quiet one. He 
rode in the funeral procession and afterwards was a 
guest at the royal luncheon given in Windsor Castle, 
where he sat at the table of King George. Over a 
hundred kings, queens, princes and princesses were 
present. 

Roosevelt spent four weeks in England. After the 
king's funeral he made his first public appearance at 
Cambridge, where he went to receive a degree. His 
new D. D. robes were of pink and scarlet. The under- 
graduates, bent on fun, placed in the middle of his 
path a "Teddy Bear," and when he was leaving the 
hall the students in the galleries dangled "Teddy Bears" 
on strings, about his head. In their college paper, the 
"Gownsman," appeared these lines: 

"Now, seriously, Teddy, we're proud to have you here; 
Your speeches may be out of date, your methods may 

be queer; 
But you've done some pretty decent things without 

delay or fuss, 
And you're full of grit inside, and that's what appeals 

to us." 

These student pranks were taken good-naturedly by 
the Colonel. They were offset a thousand times by 
the honors paid him. 

At Oxford, where he went to deliver an address and 



Through the African Wilderness 193 

receive a degree, the audience sang "For He's a Jolly 
Good Fellow." Lord Curzon, in bestowing on him the 
degree of doctor of civil law, opened his speech with 
this jesting rhyme, spoken in Latin: 

"Behold, chancellor, the promised wight 
Before whose coming comets turned to flight 
And all the startled mouths of seven-fold Nile took 
fright." 

When he went to the Mansion House luncheon he 
was amused to find himself conveyed in the Lord 
Mayor's carriage of state, driven, Cinderella style, by a 
fat coachman who wore a cocked hat, plush breeches, 
silk stockings, plush coat and white wig. 

At the Guildhall he made a speech that stirred both 
America and Great Britain, through its frank advice 
to the British on their government of Egypt. Some 
said that he had failed to consider the feelings of his 
hosts, but Great Britain as a whole took his words as 
the counsel of a sincere friend. The Foreign Secre- 
tary, Sir Edward Grey, announced that he had seen the 
address before its delivery and had approved of it. 

The Irish Party gave him a luncheon also, and he 
sat at a table decorated with Irish flags, shamrocks, and 
floral designs of Irish harps. He praised the men of 
Irish descent he had worked with in America. 

One of the most delightful adventures that came to 
the Colonel while he was in England was the trip he 
made with Sir Edward Grey through the valley of 
Itchen, for the purpose of studying bird life. Roose- 
velt, through his reading of English poetry, had become 
interested in the birds who had inspired Shakespeare, 
Milton, Keats and Shelley. He wanted to see them in 



194 Jungle Roads 

their native surroundings and he entered New Forest 
with Lord Grey with as much eagerness as when he 
plunged into the jungle to shoot lions. 

The two men tramped for three or four hours. The 
trip began at Basingstoke. From that place they drove 
through the valley of the Itchen, and then tramped through 
New Forest to an inn at Brockenhurst. Among the 
forty-one birds they met and heard sing were thrushes, 
blackbirds, larks, yellowhammers, goldfinches, stock 
doves, starlings, pheasants, swallows and partridges. The 
note of the blackbird pleased the Colonel especially. 
He saw the lark sing and soar exactly as Wordsworth 
described it. 

Ten days later, when the traveler came home to 
Sagamore Hill, he plunged into the woods surround- 
ing it and had the interesting experience of comparing 
Long Island birds with those he had heard in Eng- 
land. 

On his voyage from England to New York, the 
Colonel showed that his association with kings had not 
made him one whit less democratic. One day he went 
down into the stokehold, grasped warmly the black 
hands of the stokers, talked with them about their 
work, and at last lifted a shovel and threw several 
shovels of coal into one of the great furnaces. 



MORE TRAILS OF ADVENTURE 



XXVI. The Bull Moose 

WHEN the Colonel returned to America he found 
a host of political friends demanding that he 
again take part in the conduct of the nation. In a 
talk with Lawrence F. Abbott, of the "Outlook," an 
intimate friend, he expressed a wish to live the life of a 
country gentleman, living outdoors and reading, writing 
and lecturing as occasions rose. 

"My political career is ended," he said. "No man 
in American public life has ever reached the crest of 
the wave without the wave's breaking and engulfing 
him. Remember Dewey !" 

When he landed, President Taft, whom Roosevelt 
had chosen to succeed him, had been in office a year. 
A group of powerful insurgents had arisen in the Re- 
publican party and these claimed that the rest of the 
party, which they called the "Old Guard," and with 
which Taft was included, represented a backward in- 
stead of a forward movement in Republican politics. 

The Progressives set to work to find a candidate who 
would oppose Taft in the next Presidential election. 
Roosevelt, in spite of his first resolve, was gradually 
drawn back into politics, and great pressure was 
brought to bear on him to become again a candidate 
for President. Seven Republican governors urged him 
to run. 

195 



196 Jungle Roads 

At the Republican National Convention the rival 
candidates for the Presidential nomination were Taft 
and Roosevelt. Roosevelt appeared to have enough 
votes to secure his nomination. He conducted his own 
campaign at the convention but the Credentials Com- 
mittee decided against him in a number of state con- 
tests and this prevented his getting the leadership of 
the party. Taft was nominated. 

The delegates who voted for Roosevelt, believing that 
they represented a true majority of the Convention, 
"bolted," and gathered in a nearby hall and nominated 
Roosevelt for the presidency. Hiram W. Johnson of 
California, who in 1920 made a typical Roosevelt fight 
for the Presidential nomination, was nominated for 
Vice-President. Johnson said: "I would rather go 
down to defeat with Theodore Roosevelt than to vic- 
tory with any other presidential candidate." Thus the 
Progressive Party came to life. Its battle, its leaders 
said, was in behalf of "Human Rights." The party was 
jokingly called "The Bull Moose," because when 
Roosevelt was asked how he felt, he replied: "I feel 
like a Bull Moose." 

The contest which followed between Roosevelt and 
Taft was a bitter one — and involved somewhat of a 
tragedy in that formerly the two men had been the 
warmest of friends. Fortunately, before Roosevelt 
died, this stormy period was forgotten by them and the 
breach of friendship healed. 

While Roosevelt was making his campaign for 
election, he visited Milwaukee. He entered an automo- 
bile in front of the Gilpatrick Hotel to go to the Au- 
ditorium, where he was to speak. At that moment he 
was shot by a weak-minded man named John Schrank. 



More Trails of Adventure 197 

The bullet lodged in his shoulder. His first thought was 
to save the man who shot him from mob vengeance. 
"Don't hurt the poor creature !" he said. 

He insisted on going to the hall and delivering his 
speech. Kermit tried to persuade him to stop, but he 
kept on. At last the blood soaked through his clothing 
and showed a large stain. He staggered off the stage, 
supported by his son. Then he submitted to an X-ray- 
examination and was moved to a Chicago hospital, 
where he soon recovered. 

He wrote to Sir George Otto Trevelyan that he 
could not understand a public man not being so ab- 
sorbed in his work as to exclude thoughts of assassi- 
nation. 

The divided Republican party went down to defeat 
before the Democrats. 

The Progressive campaign had proved to be a strong 
personal triumph for Roosevelt, but from that time on 
his political fortunes ebbed. Later, the Republican 
Party was glad to welcome him back. To Senator 
Warren G. Harding the Colonel said that while it had 
been necessary for him to disrupt the party he would 
be very glad to re-enter the ranks. 

Roosevelt found a hundred tasks awaiting him when 
his "Bull Moose" campaign ended in defeat. 

He became a contributing editor to The Outlook, The 
Metropolitan Magazine and the Kansas City Star. He 
began to write his autobiography. He went after men 
who had been making false accusations against him 

The editor of the "Ishpeming Iron Ore" published in 
his paper an article which stated that "Mr. Roosevelt 
curses, lies and gets drunk frequently, and all his 
friends and intimates know this." 



198 Jungle Roads 

This article was brought to the Colonel's attention 
by indignant friends. He said that the time had come 
to slay a slander that had been circulating among 
people hostile to him. He brought suit to recover 
damages for slander. The case was tried in a Michigan 
court-house. Roosevelt testified that while he was "not 
a total abstainer" he never drank to excess. 

Damages were awarded the Colonel. The editor ad- 
mitted that he was mistaken. The Colonel said with a 
grin: 

"I have wanted to nail that lie for a long time, and 
now it is nailed." 

BACK TO THE WEST 

On a trip he took West after the Bull Moose cam- 
paign, Roosevelt arrived at Cheyenne, Wyoming. Among 
the throngs that greeted the Colonel were cow-boys 
who had known him in his ranching days. Indians, in 
gayly-colored blankets, came to see the "great paleface 
chief." The cow-boy and Indian races that were held 
brought back to the Colonel the thrills of his prairie 
days. While at Cheyenne, the Colonel took a thirty- 
mile broncho ride to the ranch of Senator Warren. 

The cowboys jokingly bet that Roosevelt would not 
come back on his mount. 

He returned at nine o'clock that night in an automo- 
bile. The cowboys saw him and began to shout. He 
chuckled. 

"Now, I would have come back on that broncho," 
he explained, "but it was so late when we started back 
that Senator Warren thought I ought to ride in the 
car. He did not want me to ride in the dark on the 
broncho, you see." 



More Trails of Adventure 199 

But the cowboys still yelled derisively. 

Leulla Irwin, a thirteen-year-old girl who took part 
in a pony race, won the Colonel's praise because, 
though she had been hurt by a fall from her horse the 
day before, she insisted despite her bruises, on riding in 
the pony race the Colonel was to see. 

"Then there was Buffalo Vernon," said Colonel 
Roosevelt. "I noticed that Vernon in his performance 
of throwing the wild buffalo had his wrist bandaged. I 
asked Vernon about this and he told me the wrist was 
broken the day before he threw the buffalo. There 
he was going through a performance that was hard 
enough with two sound wrists and he threw the buffalo, 
too. 

"That is the spirit that these people show, and it is 
an answer to those who now and then say that under 
our civilization people are getting too soft. I liked 
to see the courage and admirable qualities displayed by 
these people yesterday; there was nothing soft about 
them." 

His next undertaking was a trip to the Grand Canyon 
of Colorado. The main object of this trip was to give 
Archie and Quentin a taste of both the thrills and 
hardships of primitive Western life. Carrying no gun 
himself, he showed his boys how to hunt cougars. 

From the country above the canyon, the party moved 
with its pack train to the Navajo Desert, a lonely, 
desolate place, where nothing lived except lizards and 
rattlesnakes. 

They passed in their travels the broken, deserted vil- 
lages of the cliff-dwellers, reaching at last, the gorge 
of the Natural Bridge. Quitting this inspiring scene, 
the party came, after a three-days' journey, to the vil- 



200 Jungle Roads 

lages of the Hopi, an Indian tribe. Here a snake 
dance was in progress. Only men of the tribe were 
permitted at this dance, but, since Roosevelt, when 
president, had been regarded by them as their Great 
White Chief, he was admitted to the sacred room. 

On the floor squatted the naked, copper-colored In- 
dian priests. Against the wall, on a dais, were a num- 
ber of writhing rattlesnakes. 

A priest sat on the floor with his back to the snakes. 
A snake left the mass and darted toward him. The 
Indian guarding the snakes touched it with a fan of 
eagle feathers and it turned and glided back. This 
happened several times. One snake, unseen by the 
guardian, came close to the Colonel's knee. A priest 
threw dust in its face. Then the guardian approached 
and stroked it with the fan of eagle feathers, and 
it too turned back. 

Another ceremony attended by Roosevelt was that of 
the washing of the snakes, in which priests dipped 
rattlers in a great wooden bowl of water placed in the 
center of the room. 

The priests near the bowl began to sway and chant. 
The guardians of the snakes passed them the poisonous 
serpents, until each priest near the bowl had as many 
as he could handle. 

Then the chant ascended to a scream, and, all acting 
at the same time, the priests plunged the snakes into 
the great bowl, drew them forth, and threw them 
toward the altar. Then the priests with the fans of 
eagle feathers soothed them and sent them back to the 
dais. 



More Trails of Adventure 201 



BIG GAME OF THE SEA 



Roosevelt was never fond of fishing. Land hunting 
occupied most of his spare time, yet, in the Spring of 
1917, he spent a week in the exciting sport of devil- 
fishing off the Florida keys. Russell J. Coles, a sci- 
entific sportsman, persuaded the Colonel to go with 
him on a hunt for devilfish. The Colonel, having tried 
almost every other kind of sport, was eager to test 
the mettle of the "big game of the sea" and consented 
to spend a week at the sport. Coles hired a launch 
and an efficient crew of six men, and the fun began. 

The custom was to live on a scow near the shore 
and to go from there by boat to the part of the sea 
where devilfish were usually found. 

Harpoons were the weapons used. Roosevelt brought 
his "iron" home with him and added it to his collec- 
tion of hunting trophies. The harpoon, when in use, 
is attached to a rope which is tied to the boat. One 
of the devilfish the Colonel and Coles slew, after the 
iron had entered its body, dragged the boat a full half 
mile before its strength failed. Then the crew drew 
the boat alongside and killed the fish. 

The devilfish will not attack a person, but if at- 
tacked it will defend itself savagely. The skill re- 
quired for devllfishing consists largely of being able to 
judge the speed at which the fish moves and to throw 
the harpoon accordingly. When Roosevelt killed his 
first devilfish, after missing one by an ill-timed throw, 
his weapon went through the hide, flesh and bone of the 
fish, clean through to its heart. 



202 Jungle Roads 



XXVII. The River of Doubt Becomes the River 
Theodore 

THE Colonel was always planning a new trip. 
When he came back from Africa he began to 
think of going to South America. When this was done, 
he meant to visit the South Sea islands. The latter 
trip he was never able to take. The last trail Roose- 
velt followed into the wilderness was when in 1913 to 
1914, he plunged into the jungles of Brazil. Father 
Zahm, a Catholic priest with whom he was well ac- 
quainted, had proposed such a trip to him while he 
was President. 

His African trip was then uppermost in the Colonel's 
mind and the South American trip was postponed. On 
his return from Africa, however, Roosevelt accepted 
invitations from Argentina and Brazil to address cer- 
tain societies. It occurred to him then that after mak- 
ing this tour he could come north through the middle of 
the continent into the valley of the Amazon. 

Frank Chapman, curator of the American Museum of 
Natural History, New York, appointed the naturalists 
George K. Cherrie and Leo E. Miller to accompany 
the party. Both were veterans of the tropical American 
forests. Anthony Fiala, an Arctic explorer, went along. 
Father Zahm also agreed to go. With him went an at- 
tendant Jacob Zigg. Kermit Roosevelt joined the party. 

The naturalists planned to secure animal and plant 
specimens from the central plateau of Brazil, located 



More Trails of Adventure 203 

between the headquarters of the Amazon and the Para- 
guay Rivers. 

At Rio de Janeiro, the Colonel met Mr. Lanro Muller, 
the Brazilian Minister of Foreign Affairs, who pro- 
posed a more adventurous trip than had been projected. 
He recalled to Roosevelt's mind that through the vast 
wilderness of western Brazil, there flowed a great river 
whose destination had never been traced, and which 
was therefore called Rio da Duvida, the River of 
Doubt. Colonel Rondon, a Brazilian explorer, was 
about to make an attempt to trace the source of this 
river, and Muller suggested to Roosevelt that he should 
go with him. 

Having completed his speech-making tour, the Colonel 
started on this expedition from the city of Ascuncion, 
Paraguay. His party steamed northward up the Para- 
guay River, and when the Brazilian line came in con- 
tact with this river, Colonel Rondon and his comrades 
joined them. Rondon had had a quarter-century ex- 
perience in exploring the Brazilian wilds and was there- 
fore well fitted to guide them through the perils of the 
journey. 

As they proceeded, Kermit captured a huge ant-eater, 
which was sent to the Natural Museum at New York. 
When passing through forests of palm they saw an 
immense number of gorgeous-colored parrots, para- 
keets and macaws. On the ranch of Senhor de Barras' 
they hunted spotted jaguars, and saw the armadillo, 
a turtle-like creature that, however, when pursued by 
dogs, fled with a speed no turtle possessed. On the 
ranch of Senhor Marques, they hunted peccaries — fierce 
wild pigs. Brazil abounds in birds and wild life. The 
most dangerous are the jaguar, ocelot and puma. Count- 



204 Jungle Roads 

less varieties of monkeys inhabit the forests, including 
howling monkeys. The birds range from the humming 
-bird to the eagle. The Brazilians poetically call one 
kind of humming bird the "winged flower." Along the 
banks of the Amazon the grasses and wild plants over- 
grow the banks and the traveler is apt to step among 
these and find an alligator protruding his jaws close 
to his feet. 

Touching upon Roosevelt's love of birds, Father Zahm 
describes in The Outlook this incident which happened 
while the Colonel was sailing up the Paraguay: 

"He and I were reading on the quarter deck of the 
cruiser which was conveying our party from Asuncion 
to Corumba when presently we heard repeated rifle 
shots toward the bow. On inquiry we discovered that 
some member of the crew, in order to while away time, 
was firing at the birds which, in large numbers, were 
perched on trees on both sides of the river. As soon 
as he saw what was going on my companion became 
visibly agitated. The idea of killing and mutilating 
innocent birds as a mere pastime was too much for 
him. Rising hastily to his feet he explained with char- 
acteristic emphasis : 

"By George, this thing must stop!" 

And stop it did, in short order. 

Father Zahm tells another story which further illus- 
trates that Roosevelt was a hunter-naturalist instead of 
a game butcher. When in Brazil the Colonel was 
anxious to get a shot at a tapir, a curious animal he 
had never seen. However, after he had secured by his 
rifle the specimens he desired nothing could induce him 
to shoot another. 

On January 21st, they sent back to the United States 



More Trails of Adventure 205 

the specimens they had secured and all unnecessary bag- 
gage, and, quitting the river travels, began their overland 
journey, to the River of Doubt. 

After five weeks of difficult traveling they made their 
first contact with the river. Meanwhile, Father Zahm 
and his attendant Zigg had parted company with them, 
and Fiala and Muller had started on separate expedi- 
tions through other parts of the country. 

Those who remained to trace the river to its source 
were Roosevelt and Kermit, Cherri, Colonel Rondon, 
Lieutenant Lyra, Doctor Cajazeira, and sixteen pad- 
dlers. They carried fifty days' rations. 

In seven dugout canoes they started. When they 
came to rapids, which was frequently, it was necessary 
to walk along the shores until smooth water was 
reached. All sorts of insects tormented them. One 
night ants ate all of the doctor's undershirt. The in- 
sect bites in many cases developed into festering sores. 

When the party took to the shore, the boats had to 
be carried, and to make this portage possible, roads had 
often to be cut. The journey began on February 27th, 
1914, but by March 10th only sixty miles had been 
covered. Two of the canoes drifted from their moor- 
ings and were smashed. At one place, Kermit's canoe 
was swept down the rapids. Simplicio, one of the pad- 
dlers, was sucked under and drowned. Kermit, half- 
drowned and wholly exhausted, managed to swim to the 
shore. 

One of the dogs of the Roosevelt party was found 
dead with two Indian arrows in its body. From that 
time the party had to take precautions against Indian 
attacks. The temper of the attendants became sorely 
tried. At last came a tragedy. Julio, one of their at- 



206 Jungle Roads 

tendants, a powerful fellow but a rogue, shot Paishon, 
a good-natured negro sergeant. The murderer escaped 
into the wilderness and was never found. 

Their rations began to get low, and they were forced 
to limit themselves to two meals a day. They had to 
wade through water for days at a time. 

For two days Roosevelt lay desperately ill. He had 
tried to right an upset canoe and had struck his leg 
against a boulder. The wound became inflamed, and 
fever set in. When the fever broke he was able to get 
to his feet, but he had to be carried over the portages 
on an improvised chair. The wound in his leg de- 
veloped into an abscess. Then, before the journey 
ended another fever attacked him, and kept him pros- 
trate for ten days, nursed by Kermit and his compan- 
ions. He grew so weak and feverish that he despaired 
of ever seeing his home again. 

They came at last to a signboard bearing the initials 
J. A. This board had been set up to mark the limits 
of the explorations of a rubber-seeker. Near this place 
they found the hut of an old Brazilian peasant, the 
first human being they had met in their seven weeks' 
journey. 

Exhausted and sorely tried by the terrible hardships 
they had undergone, the explorers at last reached their 
destination. They had put on the map a river of some 
1,500 kilometers' length, from its highest source to its 
confluence with the Amazon. Travel became easy from 
this point. The party went by steamer down the Ma- 
deira River, then to the Amazon and then back to the 
United States. 

The Colonel and his party had undoubtedly rendered 
a great service to geographers by locating exactly the 



More Trails of Adventure 207 

course and destination of this river. Other explorers 
had discovered its source but they possessed neither the 
courage nor endurance to follow it to its mouth. It 
was a real River of Doubt, because nobody knew where 
it led until Colonel Roosevelt cleared away the mys- 
tery. A detailed account of the trip is contained in the 
Roosevelt volume "Through the Brazilian Wilderness." 

The journey had been too much for even the Colonel's 
great strength and endurance. When he returned to 
New York, highly honored by the Brazilian govern- 
ment and praised for his achievements by explorers who 
knew the importance and difficulties of his undertaking, 
he was a sick man. His health was undermined. He 
admitted now that he had waited too long to undertake 
what had turned out to be the hardest and most peri- 
lous task of his outdoor career. 

"There is no place in the world like it!" Roosevelt 
said the morning after his return from Brazil, as he 
sat on the porch of his home at Sagamore Hill and 
looked out at the landscape. 

"Then, Colonel," a reporter for the New York Sun 
ventured, "why did you leave it and go on that long 
trip at your time of life?" 

"I felt," said Roosevelt, "that if I wanted to do any- 
thing like that while I still had the strength to go 
through with it I should have to do so now." 

Then he admitted that perhaps he had undertaken the 
trip too late. 



AMERICA'S AWAKENER 
XXVIII. "America Arouse!" 

quoted Lowell's homely lines: 

"Better that all our ships an' all their crews 
Should sink to rot in ocean's dreamless ooze, 
Each torn flag wavin' challenge as it went, 
An' each dumb gun a brave man s monument, 
Than seek sech peace ez only cowards crave; 
Give me the peace of dead men or of brave. 

Roosevelt's reasons for urging the United States to 
• I ,h the Allies against Germany were clearly se 
Cth n a lett he wrote about this time to Samuel 
T Duln, Chairman of the Committee on Armeman 



America's Awakener 209 

Outrages, which appears in his book, "Fear God and 
Take Your Own Part." 

"The invasion of Belgium was followed by a policy 
of terrorism toward the Belgian population, the shooting 
of men, women and children, the destruction of Dinant 
and Louvain and many other places; the bombardment 
of unfortified places, not only by ships and by land 
forces but by air-craft, resulting in the killing of many 
hundreds of civilians, men, women and children, in 
England, France, Belgium and Italy; in the destruc- 
tion of mighty temples and great monuments of art, in 
Rheims, in Venice, in Verona. The devastation of 
Poland and of Serbia has been awful beyond descrip- 
tion, and has been associated with infamies surpassing 
those of the dreadful religious and racial wars of sev- 
enteenth century Europe. Such deeds as have been 
done by the nominally Christian powers in Europe, 
from the invasion of Belgium by Germany to the kill- 
ing of Miss Cavell by the German Government, things 
done wholesale, things done retail, have been such as 
we had hoped would never again occur in civilized 
warfare. They are far worse than anything that has 
occurred in such warfare since the close of the Na- 
poleonic contests a century ago. Such a deed as the 
execution of Miss Cavell, for instance, would have 
been utterly impossible in the days of the worst ex- 
citement during our Civil War." 

When the Lusitania was sunk by a German sub- 
marine on May 7, 1915, and 1,153 innocent souls, 
among whom were 114 Americans, went down to their 
death, Roosevelt flamed forth in indignation, and de- 
clared : 

"Unless we act with immediate decision and vigor 



210 Jungle Roads 

we shall have failed in the duty demanded by humanity 
at large, and demanded even more clearly by self- 
respect of the American public." 

The presidential election of 1916 came. Prepared- 
ness was an issue. Roosevelt was spoken of as a can- 
didate for the Presidency. 

"It would be a mistake to nominate me," he said, 
"unless the country has in its mood something of the 
heroic; unless it feels not only like devoting itself to 
ideals, but to the purpose measurably to realize those 
ideals in action." 

The Colonel was not nominated. 

A few months after the election Germany's disre- 
gard of American rights caused our country to enter 
the conflict against her. On February 2, 1917, the 
Colonel wrote to the Secretary of War again asking 
permission to raise a volunteer division. 

"In such event, I and my four sons will go," he pub- 
licly announced, and added: "I don't want to be put in 
the position of saying to my fellow countrymen, 'Go to 
war.' I want to be in the position of saying: 'Come 
to the war ; I am going with you.' " 

Thousands of plain and distinguished Americans 
above the draft age volunteered to serve under him. 
So eager was he to go to the front at the head of 
his own regiment that in April, 1917, he went to Wash- 
ington to plead in person with the President for his 
permission. He went unannounced and, failing to find 
the President in, he called on him again. The President 
listened to the ex-President's views with interest and 
courtesy, but did not give him a definite reply. A 
writer who was close to Wilson states that the Presi- 



America's Awakener 211 

dent was inclined to grant Roosevelt's request but was 
over-ruled by war officers. 

Later, the Secretary of War praised the Colonel for 
his patriotic spirit, but forwarded the recommendation 
of the General Staff to the effect that no American 
troops be employed in active service at the battlefront 
until after an adequate period of training and that only 
regular officers be put in command of them. This plan 
excluded regiments of the type suggested by Roose- 
velt. 

Roosevelt said, out of his bitter disappointment: 

"As far as I am concerned, this is a very exclusive 
war." 

Later, he wrote to his boys: 

"The toothless old lion must stay at home, while the 
lion's brood is out fighting!" 

Men who could not forget partisan politics were 
ready to criticize Roosevelt when he was pouring out 
his dearest treasures to save our people — including 
his critics — from the heel of Prussian oppression. When 
Kermit chose to accept a commission with the British 
forces — from which he later entered the American army 
— the Colonel's foes said that it was unpatriotic for 
Kermit to fight under the Union Jack instead of under 
the Stars and Stripes. John J. Leary, Jr., records in 
his book "Conversations with Roosevelt," the old lion's 
wrath : 

"I do not care a hang how or where my boys or 
any other man's boys fight, so long as they do fight," 
he declared. "The important thing is that they are 
fighting and that they are fighting Germany. 

"Three of my boys are in the American army and in 
American uniforms. This one is going to fight in a 



212 Jungle Roads 

British uniform. It does not make any difference to me 
what uniform they fight in. The main point is they are 
fighting, and I don't care a continental whether they 
fight in Yankee uniforms or British uniforms, or in 
their night shirts, so long as they are fighting. That's 
the main point — they are fighting." 



America's Awakener 213 



XXIX. "QUENTIN, THE EAGLE" 

FIGHTING STOCK 

Quentin, the eagle, nobly dead! 
Theodore wounded, but plunging ahead; 
Archie, torn in the shrapnel's rain, 
Pleading to lead his lads again ! 
Kermit, leaping from honors won 
To wrench new victories from the Hun! 
Here is no shielded princeling clan, 
But front-line champions of man! 
Come, have we called the roll entire? 
Nay, add to it that sturdy sire 
Who guides in spirit his Bayard breed 
To starry goal and shining deed! 

Fighting stock! Fighting stock! 
And millions more of the same brave strain, 
Plowing through Picardy and Lorraine! 
What tyrant can withstand their shock? 
Fighting stock! Fighting stock! 

— By Daniel Henderson. 

Archie came back, to recover from his wounds, in 
time to be with his father at his death. Theodore, Jr., 
though gassed and wounded, and Kermit remained at 
the battle-front until the last troops came home. Quen- 
tin stays in France, buried near where he, to use the 
Colonel's own reference, "had fought in high air like 
an eagle, and, like an eagle, fighting had died." 

One of the things that contributed to the breakdown 
of Roosevelt, was the death of Quentin, who was the 
youngest son and very close to his heart. 

Yet when news came of Quentin's death, he uncon- 
sciously gave other parents an example of fortitude by 
simply announcing: 






214 Jungle Roads 

"Quentin's mother and I are very glad he got to the 
front and had the chance to render some service to 
his country and show the stuff that was in him before 
his fate befell him." It is said that on the morning 
after he received the news of Quentin's death the 
father went into the stable at Sagamore Hill, put his 
arms around Quentin's favorite pony, and gave way to 
tears. 

Reverend Ambler M. Blackford, a former teacher 
of Quentin's, has told in The Outlook, that when 
eleven years old, Quentin, like his father, was inter- 
ested in every conceivable subject; had marked powers 
of concentration; was a good student, and passed his 
examinations with flying colors. 

He was greatly interested in the domestic animals 
around the school. One day he bought from the 
stableman for seventy-five cents a young pig, put it in 
a sack, slung it over his shoulder, and carried it two 
miles to the trolley that ran to Washington. Boarding 
the crowded car, he put the bag down beside him. A 
passenger started to sit down on the bag, and a squeak 
from within it revealed its contents to the amused pas- 
sengers. Quentin, with the instincts of a trader, sold 
the pig at a higher price to a dealer in Washington. 
When his father heard of it he ordered a second pig 
from Quentin for a dinner at the White House. 

That Quentin would become an aviator was peculiarly 
foreshadowed in a letter he wrote to Mr. Blackford 
in 1919 from Paris: 

"We were at Rheims and saw all the aeroplanes fly- 
ing and saw Curtis who won the Gordon Bennett Cup 
for the swiftest flight. You don't know how pretty it 
is to see all the aeroplanes flying at a time. At one 



America's Awakener 215 

time there were four aeroplanes in the air. It was 
the prettiest thing I ever saw. The prettiest one of the 
ones was a monoplane called the Antoinette, which 
looks like a great big bird in the air. It does not wiggle 
at all, and goes very fast. It is awfully pretty turn- 
ing. Tell S that I am sending him a model of an 

aeroplane that winds up with a rubber band. They 
work quite well. I have one which can fly a hundred 
yards, and goes higher than my head. Much love to 
all, from Quentin." 

Captain Alexander H. McLanahan of Philadelphia, 
one of Quentin's fellow-aviators, has thus given to the 
public, through Irvin R. Bacon, the story of Quentin's 
last battle: 

"Our airdrome was north of Verdun, about twenty 
miles back of the American front line. Quentin had 
joined us June 1. He had been instructor at the avia- 
tion school at Issoudun and I had formed his acquaint- 
ance there. I left Issoudun for patrol work at the 
front about two months before Quentin was allowed to 
join us. They liked his work at the aviation school 
so well that he had a hard time to obtain leave to get 
into the more perilous work at the front, for which he 
was always longing. 

"July 14 was an exceptionally fine day! ideal for our 
kind of work. We went up at 11 o'clock in the 
forenoon. There were eight of us, all, at that time, 
lieutenants — Curtis, of Rochester, N. Y. ; Sewall, of 
Bath, Me.; Mitchell, of Manchester, Mass.; Buford, of 
Nashville, Tenn., Roosevelt, Hamilton, Montague and 
I. As was customary, we chatted together before we 
went up, and of course planned what we were going 
to do. It was arranged that Lieutenant Hamilton was 



216 Jungle Roads 

to lead, and in case of any hitch to his motor, Lieu- 
tenant Curtis was to take his place in the van. 

"There was a rather stiff wind blowing in the direc- 
tion of the German lines, and when we reached an 
altitude of about 10,000 feet we began to be carried 
with great rapidity toward them. We had not yet 
sighted any enemy airplanes after we had been aloft 
an hour. Hamilton's motor went wrong about that 
time and he had to glide back home. In a few min- 
utes he was followed by Montague, whose motor also 
had gone back on him. 

"Half an hour after this, when we were five miles 
inside the German lines, we saw six of their Fokker 
planes coming toward us. They had been concealed 
until then by clouds between them and us, they flying 
on the under side of the clouds. Our planes were of 
the Nieuport type, of the lightest pursuing kind, and 
in almost every respect like the type the Germans ap- 
proaching us were using. 

"From the moment that I singled out the enemy 
whom I was to engage in duel I naturally lost sight of 
everything else and kept my eyes pretty well glued upon 
him alone. Now and then, of course, I would, when 
I got a chance, look backward, too. For one can never 
tell but that another enemy plane, having disposed of 
its opponent, may pay his respects to another one. 

"After I had fired every round of ammunition, which 
seemed to be about the same time as my adversary 
discovered himself to be in the same plight, we drew away 
from each other and flew toward our respective bases. 
During our duel my airplane had become separated 
from the others of our unit and I could see no trace 
of them. I assumed, however, that they were either 



America's Awakener 217 

still fighting or had also finished and were on their 
way back home. Somehow I did not think of the third 
alternative, namely, that anything serious had happened 
to any of them. 

"Buford and I reached our airdrome about the same 
time. Except for Quentin Roosevelt, the others had 
been there for some time ahead of us. We were not 
alarmed about Quentin at the moment. But when 
hours went by and he failed to return we knew that 
something had gone wrong with him. Still, we did 
not think he had been killed. 

"We were encouraged to hope for the best by the 
fact that Quentin had remained out a considerable 
time longer than the rest of us three days before. On 
that occasion, he had become separated from the squad, 
I don't know in what way, and when we saw him 
again he jumped out of his airplane in great excite- 
ment and so radiant with elation and with so broad a 
smile that his teeth showed exactly in the same famous 
way as his father's used to do. He never reminded 
us so much of his father as on that occasion. 

"He told us that after losing track of us he sighted 
a group of airplanes which he believed to be ours and 
headed his airplane toward them. He was too cautious, 
however, to take anything for granted, and so in 
steering toward the group he kept himself in the rear 
of them and when he got closer he discovered that they 
had the cross of the Germans painted on them. 

"His first impulse was to get away as fast as pos- 
sible; but then the hero in him spoke up and he de- 
cided to avail himself of the chance to reduce the num- 
ber of our enemies by at least one. And so, flying quite 
close to the last one of the airplanes, he fired quickly 



218 Jungle Roads 

and with such good aim that the plane immediately went 
down, spinning around, with its nose pointed to the 
ground. 

" 'I guess I got that one all right/ he said ; but he 
did not wait to see what the final outcome might be, 
for aviators are full of tricks, and, by feigning dis- 
aster to their own machines, often succeeded in draw- 
ing an overconfident enemy to destruction. Quentin 
knew this; and moreover he had another big contract 
on his hands, namely, to get away from the associates 
of the man whom he had attacked. They all turned 
upon him, firing from a dozen machine guns; but in 
firing his own gun he had wheeled about at the same 
instant, and in that way had a big handicap over the 
pursuers. He kept far enough in advance of them to 
get back within the American lines before they were 
able to lessen the distance sufficiently to make their 
shells effective. The rate of speed, by the way, was 
140 miles an hour. 

"Despite his excitement and the really exceptional 
achievement, Quentin modestly refrained from de- 
claring positively that he had bagged his man. It was 
only aftenvard, when we learned through an artillery 
observation balloon that the airplane brought down 
by Quentin had been seen to strike the earth with a 
crash, that he himself felt satisfied that he was en- 
titled to be regarded the victor. This was the occa- 
sion which brought him the Croix de Guerre." 

"After the armistice was signed," said Captain Mc- 
Lanahan, "we saw the aviator who had killed Quentin. 
He was a non-commissioned officer and one of the 
most expert fliers in the enemy's air service. After the 



America's Awakener 219 

armistice he was acting as an inspector in the surrender 
of German airplanes to the Allies. 

"This man said that when he learned that the officer 
whom he had brought down belonging to so prominent 
a family in America he felt sorry. 

" 'He was identified by a metal identification plate 
fastened by a little chain to his wrist/ said the Ger- 
man, 'and I was then told of the young man's promi- 
nence and his own personal popularity. Of course, 
even if I had known during the battle who he was, I 
would not have hesitated to try my best to down him; 
because if I hadn't he surely would have downed me. 

" 'He made a gallant fight, although I recognized 
almost from the beginning of our duel that he was not 
as experienced as some others I had encountered and 
won out against. 

" 'As it was he dipped and circled and looped and 
tried in a variety of ways to get above and behind 
me. It was not at all an easy task for me to get the 
upper hand and down him.' " 

In Belgium there is a section which the "Tommies" 
named "Plug Street." The graves of ten thousand 
soldiers fill a ravine there. Above this crude burying- 
ground a painted sign has been nailed. Bullets and 
shrapnel have battered it, but these words can be 
traced : 

"They Gave Their Today for Your Tomorrow." 

Thus it was with Quentin Roosevelt; thus it was 
with all of our soldiers who fell along the frontiers 
of liberty. Will the boys of today remember their 
debt to these men, and make themselves worthy of the 
sacrifice made for them? 



220 Jungle Roads 

THE COLONEL PASSES 

The father did not live long after the death of 
Quentin. He passed away on January 6, 1919. His 
personal attendant, James Lee, sat at his bedside. To 
him the Colonel spoke his last words : 

"Put out the light, please." 

He was buried at a spot which he himself had 
selected as his resting place. It lies on a hillside, at 
the bottom of which flow the blue waters of Long 
Island Sound. Across familiar woods rises his beloved 
cottage on Sagamore Hill. The wild flowers Roose- 
velt loved have sprung up to beautify his grave. 

Fitting tributes were paid to him by his country and 
by the world. Flags flew at half-mast. Official salutes 
were fired by the American armies at home and abroad. 
Kings and Presidents cabled their tributes to him and 
their sympathy with his family. A touching tribute 
was the sending of an order by the national headquarters 
of the American Boy Scouts to its scouts, that each 
troop should plant one or more trees with appropriate 
ceremonies, in memory of the ex-President, as a "per- 
manent expression of all Colonel Roosevelt stood for 
to the boys of the nation." 

Because of the plain grave in the simple cemetery, 
Oyster Bay has become a national shrine. Thousands 
of pilgrims come to the Colonel's resting-place every 
year. They come to do honor to his dust; they know 
that his brave soul is living and abroad in the land. 

THE END 



